1785 diary containing notes written by William Temple Franklin. Written in the 1785 edition of Almanach des Rendez-Vous, printed in Paris.

These are transcripts of original documents and letters from various libraries. There is extensive annotation by Claude-Anne Lopez.

After William Temple Franklin returned to Europe in 1792, he left oversight of his financial interests in America in the hands of his intimate friend and fellow land speculator, George Fox. A physician and member of the American Philosophical Society, Fox also took possession of the remainder of Benjamin Franklin's papers, which eventually passed through his son, Charles Pemberton Fox, to the APS. The Franklin-Fox Collection contains 98 items, consisting mostly of letters from William Temple Franklin to George Fox regarding land holdings and finances, and retained copies of Fox's letters to Franklin. The correspondence is fairly relentlessly focused on business matters and rarely contains personal comments, however there are occasional requests for books and two reference to the yellow fever epidemic of 1798 and the death of Benjamin Franklin Bache.

Associates of Benjamin Franklin and his grandson William Temple Franklin, the Fox family of Philadelphia were holders of considerable property in Philadelphia during the eighteenth century and speculated extensively in lands in the northern and western parts of the state. The son of Dr. George Fox, Charles Pemberton Fox inherited the estate Champlost at which the papers of Benjamin Franklin were left in 1790. He donated the collection to the American Philosophical Society in 1840. The legal records that comprise the William Temple Frankln-Charles Pemberton Fox collection relate to real property held by members of the Fox family and to the land holdings and financial interests of George Fox's close friend, William Temple Franklin. The collection includes about 100 deeds for properties in or near Philadelphia and in Luzerne County, Pa., along with a small quantity (about 31 items) of miscellaneous correspondence addressed to George Fox by Gouverneur Morris, Robert Morris, N. Cantwell Jones, Thomas Eddy, and others; and from William Constable and Sir Robert Herries and Co. (17 pieces) relating to the investments of William Temple Franklin.

The North Amercian Land Company ledger contains accounts with prominent men of the time; in additon to the ledger are numerous deeds and other documents involving Robert Morris.

These letters are mainly business correspondence with his friend William Temple Franklin or are about Franklin's lands and investments in the United States.

The son of William Franklin, Royal Governor of New Jersey, William Temple Franklin worked as aide to his grandfather, Benjamin Franklin, when the latter served as minister to France during the American Revolution. A bonvivant, Temple received his highest public appointment as Secretary to the American delegation at the Treaty of Versailles in 1782-1783, largely through the influence of his famous grandfather, but never again attained a significant post. As Franklin's literary heir, he edited and published a three volume set of his grandfather's writings in 1817. He married his long time mistress a few months before his death in Paris in 1823. The William Temple Franklin Papers provides a richly detailed portrait of the life of the grandson of Benjamin Franklin, and consists largely of letters received during the years that Temple served as his grandfather's aide in France, 1776-1785. Although much of the correspondence is routine, during this period, Temple received regular reports from friends and diplomatic colleagues relaying information on the American Revolution, the course of diplomatic and peace negotiations, and French public opinion on Benjamin Franklin and the new United States. The collection is also a rich resource for information on the personal lives of the Franklins, including interesting correspondence from Temple's relatives William Franklin, Elizabeth Franklin, Sarah Franklin Bache, and Jonathan Williams, and his mistress Blanchette Caillot.

The Calendar of the Papers of Benjamin Franklin prepared by Isaac Minis Hays for the bicentennial of Franklin's birth in 1906 provides access to the largest portion of the Franklin Papers at the APS. The items were originally bound into volumes in roughly chronological order, with letters to Franklin preceding those from Franklin and at the end of the collection, Franklin's letters owned by the University of Pennsylvania. Each manuscript is still identified by Hays' reference numbers, which include a roman numeral refering to the original volume followed by an arabic number to identify the folio. The electronic version of the finding aid replicates Hays' calendar, including the introductory material and item-level descriptions. It has been updated to reflect corrections in the metadata, corrections of personal names, dates, and description.