Isaac Franklin

Isaac Franklin (May 26, 1789 – April 27, 1846) was an American slave trader and planter. He was the co-founder of Franklin & Armfield, "the largest slave trading firm" in the United States, and the owner of six plantations in Louisiana and Tennessee, one of which, Fairvue, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, while another one, Angola, is the largest maximum-security prison in the United States.

Early life
He was born on May 26, 1789 at "Pilot Knob" Plantation on Station Camp Creek in Sumner County, Tennessee. His grandfather Charles (1735-1769) and father James Franklin (1755-1825 or 1828) came from Baltimore, Maryland. James Franklin moved to East Tennessee as a "Long Hunter" in the 1770s for trapping and exploration. He served in the Revolutionary War and was listed by militia leader James Robertson as one of the "Immortal Seventy" who received and was granted 640 acre of land by the state of North Carolina. Isaac's mother was Mary Lauderdale. James Franklin prospered in Tennessee—as each of his sons reached adulthood, he presented them with a horse, a bridle and a pocket knife. Thus, when Isaac was twenty-one years old, he received his share and according to tradition used the knife to carve a ship miniature which he sold to a friend for one dollar, which in fifteen years he parlayed into a fortune.

Career
Franklin took up slave trading in 1810. After serving in the War of 1812, he resumed the trade. Isaac formed a partnership with his nephew John Armfield. From 1828 (when Isaac's father James died and bequeathed land and slaves to Isaac and his brother James) to 1837, Franklin & Armfield became "the largest slave trading firm" in the United States. They set up their business in Alexandria, DC (today, Virginia). Franklin also had an office in New Orleans, St. Francisville and Vidalia, Louisiana. The firm owned six ships to take slaves from Alexandria to the Deep South. As their ships returned to Alexandria, they carried sugar, molasses, whiskey, and cotton. Franklin made his Tennessee plantation, "Fairvue," his home. Once Fairvue was finished, he turned towards Louisiana where Franklin purchased six plantations, called "Bellevue", "Killarney", "Lochlomond", "Angola", "Loango" and "Panola". He also bought thousands of acres of land in Texas, as well as a turnpike, bank stock, and a third interest in the Nashville Race Course. In 1835, Isaac Franklin eased out of active slave trading and by 1841 he was completely out of the business.

After marrying and withdrawing from his business with Armfield, Franklin concentrated on managing his Tennessee and Louisiana plantations and other property in Mississippi. Nonetheless, when he died in 1846, he owned 10000 acre of land in Louisiana and over 600 slaves.

Personal life
In 1839, at the age of fifty, he married Adelicia Acklen (1817–1887), the daughter of Oliver Bliss Hayes (1783-1858), a lawyer and a Presbyterian Minister, and Sarah Clemmons Hightower (1795-1871). They had four children: Victoria, Adelicia, Emma, and Julius Caesar. All died in early childhood. Upon his death in 1846, he left her his slave trading fortune, with which she had Belmont Mansion in Nashville constructed in 1853.

Death and legacy
Isaac Franklin died on April 27, 1846 in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana. His corpse was preserved in alcohol and he was taken to Fairvue. By a will he made in 1841, Franklin attempted to endow a school or seminary at Fairview, which became the subject of protracted litigation, much as the Philadelphia will of Stephen Girard.

His widow sold Fairview to William Franklin for $30,000 in 1848 and remarried the following year. She leased and later sold the Louisiana plantations to Samuel James, who leased prisoners from the state to run them. The state acquired the merged plantations under the name Angola in 1901 and they form the core of the Angola Prison.