His father was Clerk of the United States House of Representatives, and his paternal great-grandfather was Samuel Rhoads, who had served in the First Continental Congress and as Mayor of Philadelphia in 1774.

Their schools were held in receiving ships and cruising vessels, in the midst of a thousand interruptions and impediments, which render[ed] the whole system of little or no value.

Hearing a false report that war had broken out, the Pacific Squadron left Lima, Peru, and seized Monterey without a fight October 19–20, 1842.

[13] The ship spent some months cruising the North Pacific and the coast of Central America, and Franklin and some of his fellow sailors took several days to explore the interior of Nicaragua near the port city of El Realejo.

He therefore decided to put off entrance at the Naval Academy until October, and spent the months of July, August, and September at home in York, Pennsylvania.

[21] In mid-spring 1849, Franklin was ordered to leave the U.S. Coast Survey and report to the razeed USS Independence, then being fitted out in Norfolk as the flagship of the Mediterranean Squadron.

The Dolphin was to cruise the northern Atlantic Ocean, taking deep-sea soundings to determine whether a subsurface ridge, plateau, or mount existed on which an undersea telegraph cable might be laid.

[31] During this time, the Falmouth participated in the Paraguay expedition,[b] and cruised the Paraná River and Río de la Plata until April 1859.

Neither duty involved any training or experience; officers were expected to pick up knowledge on their own, and Franklin strongly disliked the work.

While at the Dry Tortugas, Franklin met Lieutenant Colonel Montgomery C. Meigs, then somewhat furtively taking stock of the various United States ports, forts, and harbors in the Deep South with an eye toward holding them if war broke out.

With foreign intervention looming and a possible civil war,[37] the Navy ordered the Macedonian to depart for the Mexican city of Veracruz to monitor events in that nation.

Arriving at Veracruz, Franklin remained with the ship for some months before the Macedonian began patrolling the Gulf of Mexico and the West Indies.

[34] With the Civil War raging, Franklin was ordered back to the Washington Navy Yard, where he assisted in outfitting the gunboat USS Pinola.

[47] The Roanoke passed the Rip Raps (a small, man-made island in the harbor's mouth) about the same time, she and her three tugs struggling against the current.

She ran aground on a shoal about 4:30 PM, although the tide lifted her off again a few minutes later, and she returned to Fort Monroe and the safety of the Union shore guns.

[53] The ship was assigned to the North Atlantic Blocking Squadron, serving in the waters off Hampton Roads as part of the Union blockade of the Confederacy.

[54] He witnessed the scuttling and burning of the Virginia on May 11, 1862,[55] and cruised to New Orleans, Louisiana, to deliver messages before returning Hampton Roads in late June.

[62] Farragut resumed command of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron in December 1863 and on January 19, 1864, his flagship (the USS Hartford) anchored off Mobile Bay.

[64] Franklin's new assignment was as Fleet Captain on the staff of Commodore James Shedden Palmer, senior officer of U.S. naval forces on the Mississippi River in the vicinity of New Orleans.

When Palmer departed for the New York Navy Yard, Acting Rear Admiral Henry K. Thatcher was appointed commander of the squadron on February 23, 1865.

[66][f] Franklin remained on Thatcher's staff as Fleet Captain, and was the naval representative on the Union delegation which accepted the surrender of Mobile on April 12, 1865.

[69] On February 5, 1866, Captain Robert Wainwright Scott of the USS Saginaw died suddenly while the ship was at Acapulco, Mexico.

[72] Saginaw reached San Francisco, California, in March 1866, and spent five months undergoing repairs at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard.

She then received orders to proceed to Esquimalt Harbour on Vancouver Island in Canada, where she spent several months assisting the Western Union in laying a telegraph cable across the Bering Strait.

[77] Franklin was then given command of the USS Wabash in April 1873, and appointed chief of staff to Rear Admiral Augustus Case.

[79] The Virginius Affair had caused a war scare between the United States and Spain, and Wabash headed for Florida in case the Navy needed ships to invade Cuba.

[89] But on January 24, 1885, he was promoted to rear admiral,[6] and from May 7 to May 28, 1885, he served as commander-in-chief of the U.S. Navy's Training Squadron, with his flagship aboard the USS Pensacola.

[97] Marion had previously been married to Arthur Henry Dutton, a U.S. Army engineer and brevet brigadier general who died in battle in 1864.

Franklin sued to gain his $5,000, but the United States Court of Claims held that his Navy pension qualified as salary, and denied relief.

[85] After several weeks of illness, Samuel Rhoads Franklin died at his home in Washington, D.C., on February 24, 1909, of chronic kidney failure.