Franklin S. Mills
Franklin S. Mills was born around 1814 in Reading, Pennsylvania. He supported the Democratic Party, and he earned a living as a newspaper editor. He edited The Columbia Democrat in 1837, and he helped establish several newspapers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey in the late 1830s and early 1840s. In April 1843, he declared his support for “pure old fashioned Democratic principles—the principles of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, and Van Buren.” He vowed to “Maintain the people’s right rule” and “Oppose the rising power of Aristocracy.”
He moved to Trenton, New Jersey, in the 1830s, and he married Catherine Redman on March 26, 1840. They had at least seven children: Frances, born around 1841; James, born around 1844; Mary, born around 1846; Jesse born around 1849; William, born around 1850; Rachel, born around 1851; and Catherine, born around 1860.
By 1849, he was serving as an alderman in Trenton, New Jersey. Local voters elected him to the state legislature in the early 1850s. In June 1856, he denounced New Jersey’s “Abolition Republican party” for the “sectional war they have raised—and the hostility to the Union they have proclaimed.” As that year’s presidential election approached, he insisted that only the Democratic Party could “rescue…the Constitution and the Union.” Mills became mayor of Trenton in 1857, and he held the position until 1861.
In April 1861, he received a commission as a 1st lieutenant in Company D of the 3rd New Jersey Infantry. He mustered out on July 31, 1861.
In June 1862, he declared that the “Democratic party [was] standing firmly for the Constitution.” They “regard the country—its vast interests—its Constitution and Laws as in the balance, and they will see that in her hour of peril she shall not be found wanting.” Nonetheless, he expressed disapproval of “the manner in which the war is prosecuted,” and he remained opposed to “placing the negro on an equality with the white man.”
He became mayor of Trenton again in 1863, and he served until 1867. By 1870, he was serving as a justice of the peace, and he owned $8,000 of real estate and $1,000 of personal property. He remained in Trenton for the rest of his life, and he died there of heart disease on November 25, 1885.
DATABASE CONTENT
| (2679) | Mills, Franklin S. | 1814 | 1885-11-25 |
- Conflict Side: Union
- Role: Soldier
- Rank in: 1st Lieutenant
- Rank out: 1st Lieutenant
- Rank highest: 1st Lieutenant
- Gender: Male
- Race: White
Documents - Records: 7
- (7574) [writer] ~ Franklin S. Mills to Sister, undated
- (7578) [writer] ~ Franklin S. Mills to Unknown, undated
- (7579) [writer] ~ Franklin S. Mills to Brother, undated
- (7584) [writer] ~ Franklin S. Mills to Unknown, 23 May 1862
- (7624) [writer] ~ Franklin S. Mills to Unknown, 17 May 1862
- (7627) [writer] ~ Franklin S. Mills to Sibling, undated
- (7633) [writer] ~ Franklin S. Mills to Unknown, 14 May 1862
People - Records: 1
- (2681) Mills, (?) is the [sibling of] (2679) Mills, Franklin S.
Places - Records: 2
Regiments - Records: 1
- (804) [officer] [D] ~ 3rd New Jersey Infantry
Groups - Records: 1
- (1) [politician] ~ Democratic Party
SOURCES
1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880 United States Federal Censuses, available from Ancestry.com; Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, 1861-1865, available from Ancestry.com; New Jersey Marriage Records, 1670-1965, available from Ancestry.com; The Columbia Democrat (Bloomsburg, PA), 10 February 1838; Monmouth Democrat (Freehold, NJ), 28 February 1839, 6 April 1843, 10 July 1856, 19 June 1862; The Lancaster (PA) Examiner, 6 March 1850; The York (PA) Daily, 26 November 1885.
