A Franklin Founding Father
Dr. Samuel Fowler making the town significant
Dr. Samuel Fowler lived from October 30, 1779 to February 20, 1844. I consider him as a person who is a Profile in Character for his accomplishments in my home town. He came along well before my family had been here, and as history will have it, families will come and go from a place, and generations move the spotlights of the focus of their interest will change with the passage of time. So with this, names and contributions are mostly lost. Study of history, though, will show that Dr. Fowler had done so much for the foundation of the town that he can be considered a father of my home town. He had a wide range of knowledge and interest in exploration along with leadership qualities.
It is said that he may have been an early determinate of the name of the town of Franklin. This name may have been after world-famous Benjamin Franklin or his son William Franklin who was the New Jersey royal governor in the 1760s when the earliest inhabitants were known to be mining iron ore.
Originally from Newburgh, NY he arrived at nearby Hamburg, NJ as a doctor and then moved to my town. He served as a New Jersey Legislature in 1827 and the United States House of Representatives from 1833 to 1837.
When living in Franklin Furnace, as it was known then, he owned large plots that held rich deposits of iron and zinc ore. He constructed a fulling mill, tannery, and blacksmith shop. He researched the ore bodies and became a mineralogist, discovering and identifying rare minerals in the deposits. He used his mill and furnace to test ways to put the ores to good use, especially the difficult to extract zinc from the unique mineral franklinite.
Dr. Fowler’s work helped him become a noted and respected mineralogist worldwide.
Dr. Fowler’s life is indeed Inspiring History. His wide ranging achievements place him as a Profile in Character. Qualities of this are his interest as a doctor in helping to make humans healthy. His study and research on the details of rocks and specimens and recording the phenomena are studious accomplishments that have helped bring natural resources beneath his feet to the benefit of society and making life better for people. He socialized to the world the resources of Franklin Furnace. His leadership qualities in government and politics have furthered the state’s domestication of nature and made for countless livelihoods with the value of the minerals he identified. Dr. Samuel Fowler had a significant contribution to the fact that the New Jersey Senate and Assembly agreed, unanimously, to memorialize Franklinite as the State Mineral of New Jersey.
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Inspiring History is a compendium of people we could recognize for their good traits: knowledge, skills, abilities, and intentions that amount to qualities that have made our world a better place. These Profiles in Character offer us examples that we could emulate ourselves for us to also improve the human condition and the world around us.
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Images from public domain, Library of Congress, personal images.
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Episode 31 8/17/2024
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