To the north across the Canada–United States border are the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario, from east to west.

[2] The county is named in honor of United States Founding Father Benjamin Franklin.

The people are linked by community and history with the Mohawk of the Akwesasne reserve across the river, spanning the border of Quebec and Ontario.

In historic times, a group of primarily Mohawks established a village south of colonial Montreal across the St. Lawrence River; they had been trading with French colonists and many had converted to Catholicism.

Both groups had settled primarily in Albany and along the Hudson River, a major waterway linking the upriver fur trade with the market of Manhattan.

Gradually new counties were formed as colonial settlement increased, but most settlers stayed east of the middle of the Mohawk Valley, as the Iroquois nations controlled the lands beyond that.

After the war, New York State sold off 5 million acres of former Iroquois territory at very low prices, seeking to attract settlers to develop farms and businesses.

In the late 1880s and 1890s, both the Delaware and Hudson and New York Central railroads were constructed into the Town of Franklin.

The Chateaugay branch of the Delaware and Hudson served the hamlet of Onchiota, which developed for the lumber industry.

For more than 12 years, a major tract north of Saranac Lake was harvested and millions of feet of timber were shipped out from here.

[citation needed] The railroads contributed to the Town of Franklin becoming a destination for summer travelers.

Due to the construction of highways and restructuring in the railroad industry, passenger service was ended to this remote area in the mid-20th century.

[9] Ray Fadden (Mohawk), with his wife, Christine, and son, John, was the founder and curator of the Six Nations Indian Museum located in Onchiota, a census-designated place in the Town of Franklin.

The family-owned museum features more than 3,000 artifacts primarily from the Iroquoian nations, and interprets their culture.

[11] They were a prominent confederacy in New York of Six Nations by 1722, and they controlled much of the state west of colonial settlements in Albany and Schenectady.

North Country Community College is sponsored by and serves Franklin and Essex counties, with campuses in Saranac Lake (village) - Malone (town) and Ticonderoga.

The county remained reliably Democratic for twenty years, giving Barack Obama margins of 22.2% in 2008 and 26.1% in 2012.