Come one, come all, to the historic Proprietary House in Perth Amboy, New Jersey on Saturday, June 16 at 1pm! We will be reenacting the unfortunate arrest of the colony’s last Royal Governor, William Franklin, whose argument with his famous rebel father Benjamin caused him to make a decision that would change not only his life, but American history: loyalty to the crown and King George III over loyalty to his father, and his passionate support of the revolutionary cause. It is the story of one of the most famous family break-ups in history, and this decision caused the Provincial Congress of New Jersey to order his arrest on June 19, 1776 by the Colonial Militia led by Col. Nathaniel Heard. While we see the British as evil today, Franklin was much-loved by the citizens of the colony, but he just could not rebuke his inner feelings of loyalty to a King he deeply respected; the man who instilled him as the governor after years of hard work and service to the Crown. This reenactment that we put on every year takes place over the course of three days in the year of our independence, with Heard’s first visit to the governor’s mansion—we stage the event in Franklin’s actual drawing room—where he got the door slammed in his face, and his return later in the week with an arrest warrant and full militia to drag haughty William out of the house. It is an untold story of the Revolution, except by us, as we have now eclipsed twenty years of arrest plays and reenactments.
