Franklin (1773) on colonial obligations
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A couple of days ago, I did a web search to find out how late the King of Prussia mall was open, and landed on the Wikipedia page for the "census-designated place" King of Prussia, which (as I knew) includes lots of stuff besides the mall. Reading the article and following links, as one does, I learned something new, namely why in the world an "edge city of Philadelphia" was named after Frederick the Great.
It all started with a tavern:
The eponymous King of Prussia Inn was originally constructed as a cottage in 1719 by the Welsh Quakers William and Janet Rees, founders of Reesville. The cottage was converted to an inn in 1769 and did a steady business in colonial times as it was approximately a day's travel by horse from Philadelphia. Settlers headed west to Ohio would sleep at the inn on their first night on the road. In 1774 the Rees family hired James Berry to manage the inn, which henceforth became known as "Berry's Tavern". General George Washington first visited the tavern on Thanksgiving Day in 1777 while the Continental Army was encamped at Whitemarsh; a few weeks later Washington and the army bivouacked at nearby Valley Forge.
Exactly how and when the name changed is apparently not entirely clear. But the reason for the change is clearly connected to Benjamin Franklin's 1773 satirical essay "An Edict by the King of Prussia", prepared "For the Public Advertiser" (and perhaps published there?).
That document argues that just as America's colonial ties to Britain give the British the right to impose taxes, duties, and regulations, so the Germanic origins of settlers in Britian gives Frederick analogous rights:
WHEREAS it is well known to all the World, that the first German Settlements made in the Island of Britain, were by Colonies of People, Subjects to our renowned Ducal Ancestors, and drawn from their Dominions, under the Conduct of Hengist, Horsa, Hella, Uffa, Cerdicus, Ida, and others; and that the said Colonies have flourished under the Protection of our august House, for Ages past, have never been emancipated therefrom, and yet have hitherto yielded little Profit to the same. And whereas We Ourself have in the last War fought for and defended the said Colonies against the Power of France, and thereby enabled them to make Conquests from the said Power in America, for which we have not yet received adequate Compensation. And whereas it is just and expedient that a Revenue should be raised from the said Colonies in Britain towards our Indemnification; and that those who are Descendants of our antient Subjects, and thence still owe us due Obedience, should contribute to the replenishing of our Royal Coffers, as they must have done had their Ancestors remained in the Territories now to us appertaining: WE do therefore hereby ordain and command, That from and after the Date of these Presents, there shall be levied and paid to our Officers of the Customs, on all Goods, Wares and Merchandizes, and on all Grain and other Produce of the Earth exported from the said Island of Britain, and on all Goods of whatever Kind imported into the same, a Duty of Four and an Half per Cent. ad Valorem, for the Use of us and our Successors. — And that the said Duty may more effectually be collected, We do hereby ordain, that all Ships or Vessels bound from Great Britain to any other Part of the World, or from any other Part of the World to Great Britain, shall in their respective Voyages touch at our Port of KONINGSBERG, there to be unladen, searched, and charged with the said Duties.
[…]
We flatter Ourselves that these Our Royal Regulations and Commands will be thought just and reasonable by Our much-favoured Colonists in England, the said Regulations being copied from their own Statutes of 10 and 11 Will. III. C. 10. — 5 Geo. II. C. 22. — 23 Geo. II. C. 29. — 4 Geo. I. C. 11. and from other equitable Laws made by their Parliaments, or from Instructions given by their Princes, or from Resolutions of both Houses entered into for the GOOD Government of their own Colonies in Ireland and America.
Update — comments by languagehat and others make it pretty clear that the inn's name predates Franklin's satirical piece. But Franklin's writing is still an amusing commentary on the issues at play in the 1770s…
languagehat said,
June 29, 2024 @ 8:32 am
But the reason for the change is clearly connected to Benjamin Franklin's 1773 satirical essay "An Edict by the King of Prussia", prepared "For the Public Advertiser"
That is most certainly not clear, and in fact seems extremely unlikely — why would an inn be named for some random satirical essay? "King of Prussia" was as well known a phrase in the 18th century as "president of the United States" or "king of England" is today, and I can think of dozens of reasons why an inn might have ended up being thus named without dragging in Ben Franklin. In fact, here's a far more likely one from p. 332 of The Pictorial Field-book of the Revolution, Vol. 2 (1851), by Benson John Lossing:
Of course, the fact that the name is attested in 1761 (assuming that's true) puts paid to the Franklin theory.
languagehat said,
June 29, 2024 @ 8:42 am
In fact, there are a number of inns of that name in England — I found ones in Cornwall and Devon with a quick google. It's a perfectly cromulent name that doesn't seem to call for special explanation.
J.W. Brewer said,
June 29, 2024 @ 8:50 am
See also this account, which feels a little bit historicity-challenged, but is maybe more consistent with the Germantown location mentioned in languagehat's source than in the separate location out near the modern mall: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_Prussia_Inn#Diary_of_Johann_Conrad_D%C3%B6hla
The King of Prussia was Britain's primary ally in the Seven Years War of 1756-63 and would thus have been a reasonably obvious person for a "patriotic" colonial tavern to be named after in the timeframe of that war (better known in the 13 colonies as the "French and Indian War") or its aftermath.
As both Franklin and everyone else would have known at the time, very few of the ethnic Germans in colonial Pennsylvania had emigrated from Prussian-ruled parts of Germany – Prussia's dramatic territorial expansion west of Brandenburg was largely a subsequent development. Some number would have likewise known that the Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain likewise did not come from anywhere near Königsberg, and maybe assuming readers would know that was part of Franklin's joke? That said, one of the consequences of the Seven Years War was the emergence of Prussia as a soi-disant (sorry, "sogenannte") "Great Power," which was the equal in European military and political affairs of Austria or Spain etc. and operating at a higher level of importance than Bavaria or Saxony or other regional powers in the still-disunited Germany. So perhaps the King of Prussia was already by synecdoche somehow coming to represent Germany as a whole a century before full unification under Prussian auspices?
J.W. Brewer said,
June 29, 2024 @ 9:01 am
One other quirk: The title of Frederick the Great was technically "King in Prussia" (König in Preußen) until 1772 when it was officially switched over (incident to the First Partition of Poland) to "King of Prussia" (König von Preußen). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_in_Prussia
However, it would not surprise me if this legalistic distinction between "in" and "von" (apparently having to do with managing the tension between shifting political realities and traditional status hierarchies within the Holy Roman Empire) was lost on Anglophone tavern-sign painters on the far side of the Atlantic, who may plausibly have gone with the more intuitive "of" formulation well in advance of the formal change to "von" in German.
J.W. Brewer said,
June 29, 2024 @ 9:51 am
About 40 miles west of King of Prussia, Pa. is Blue Ball, Pa., which is also standardly said to have taken its name from an 18th/19th-century tavern sign. (Although some are quick to note the "suggestive secondary meaning" and try to group it with other nearby toponyms like Intercourse, Pa.)
It seems quite plausible that there would be more American toponyms than those two derived from tavern signs. Hopefully someone out there on the internet has compiled a list. Wikipedia claims that the name of White Horse, N.J. "derives from a local tradition that holds that George Washington rode through the area on a white horse," but "the White Horse" was a perfectly common 18th-century tavern sign (originally signaling loyalty to the House of Hanover, so not a place that Jacobites would go drinking …), so I have my doubts about that story.
CuConnacht said,
June 29, 2024 @ 1:12 pm
Among the places with tavern names in Maryland are Rising Sun and Cross Keys (now a neighborhood in Baltimore). Bird in Hand in Pennsylvania also sounds like a tavern name to me.
Jenny Chu said,
June 29, 2024 @ 8:52 pm
As mentioned in the previous post about misspelled road signs in the Philadelphia area, the name of West Chester, Pennsylvania prior to the [Revolutionary] war was Turk's Head, and this came from the name of the inn established there.
But where did that name come from? When I was young (pre-Internet) people it was widely stated around town that someone discovered a skeleton, or anyway a skull, with an odd-looking helmet on it and decided it was that of a "Turk" (as a sort of general term for a foreigner). I accepted that without question for many years until I came across a reference to a Turk's Head Inn somewhere in the UK; it turns out there are many of that name there. Thus, it seemed much more likely that the inn in what was to become West Chester was named that simply because it was a common name for an inn in those days. (The legend might have come from UK too; I can imagine someone there coming across an old Viking skull and saying, "What's this, a Turk's head?")
Was that true of King of Prussia? Are there plenty of King of Prussia inns in UK or other places?
Peter Taylor said,
June 30, 2024 @ 2:14 am
@Jenny Chu, the Turk's head is a recognised symbol in heraldry (particularly in Eastern Europe). It's easy to speculate that it may have been used as a sign by ex-Crusaders who opened inns when they retired from the military life. I don't recall seeing any Turk's Head or King of Prussia inns in the UK: Google Maps finds two of the latter but quite a few more of the former.
As an aside: had Franklin never heard of William the Conqueror?
TM Jones said,
June 30, 2024 @ 3:34 am
I’ve enjoyed a pint in The Turk’s Head in Penzance, and Google shows several others. Here in the Midlands, it is much more common to see pubs called the Saracen’s Head.
Jenny Chu said,
June 30, 2024 @ 6:27 am
@Peter Taylor – ah, heraldry would explain it!
There seems to be a Turk's Head inn in Exeter and another Twickenham.
Hans Adler said,
July 1, 2024 @ 6:09 am
I guess it made a lot of sense for Quakers who had fled to North America from persecution to name their inn after a foreign ruler known as a champion of persecuted Protestants.
– 1685: The prosecution of French Protestants (known as Huguenots) reaches its peak under Louis XIV. They are threatened by torture and death, even for just attempting to leave the country. Around 400,000 manage to flee. Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg and Duke in Prussia, Protestant ruler of a vast, scarcely populated area, offers them refuge. Around 20,000 Huguenots move to the Berlin area, where they get significant privileges to maintain their French culture. For example:
– 1689: Creation of a French high school in Berlin that exists to this day, nowadays as a bilingual elite school operated by the French government according to both French and German curricula. (The German Wikipedia has articles on 20 former teachers and 130 alumni.)
– 1701: Frederick III, Elector of Brandenburg and Duke in Prussia, styles himself Frederick I, KING in Prussia and gets away with it. This is a time of wasteful splendor at the court in Berlin, but also of flourishing culture due to the Huguenots.
– 1737: Although on a much smaller scale, Frederick William I, King in Prussia, builds a village (Bohemian Rixdorf, next to pre-existing German Rixdorf) for Bohemian Protestants (Moravian Brethren) fleeing from persecution in the Habsburg Empire. Like the French, they get cultural privileges.
– 1756-1763 Seven Years' War (see J.W. Brewer's comment)
– 1769: Quakers begin to run an inn in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (lots of contact with Germans?) which at some point will be called "King of Prussia".
Philip Taylor said,
July 1, 2024 @ 6:55 am
Hans — Fascinating. I had always thought that Quakers eschewed alcohol, but your final bullet point led me to research the subject, at which point I found :
[Source: https://quakerspeak.com/video/do-quakers-drink-alcohol/%5D
Stephen said,
July 1, 2024 @ 5:40 pm
@Jenny Chu
"Are there plenty of King of Prussia inns in UK or other places?"
I can't say it is a name that I am familiar with. A search on the CAMRA [1] pub site
https://whatpub.com/search?q=King+of+Prussia&t=ft&p=1&home=1
has seven open entries of which three have it as a former name.
Widening the search to include closed pubs raises the count to 13.
Many years ago we were holidaying on Dartmoor and the information in the place said that local pub (along with a number of others in the country) had been renamed The King of Prussia in the 1870s after the Franco-Prussian War.
In 1914 that was not seen as an appropriate name so the word 'Prussia' was painted over, with the intention of renaming the pub properly at some later stage. However no-one got around to that and so for decades its name was just 'The King of'.
1. Campaign for Real Ale, https://camra.org.uk/