User:West Virginian/Benjamin Franklin Washington

Benjamin Franklin Washington (April 7, 1820 – January 22, 1872) was an American newspaper editor and Forty-niner and a member of the Washington family.

Early life and family
Benjamin Franklin Washington was born on April 7, 1820 at "Cedar Lawn" plantation near Charles Town in Jefferson County, Virginia (present-day West Virginia) and was the fifth child of John Thornton Augustine Washington and his wife Elizabeth Conrad Bedinger Washington.

Through his father, Washington was a grandson of Thornton Augustine Washington, a great-grandson of Samuel Washington, and a great-grandnephew of first President of the United States George Washington. Through his mother, he was a great-grandson of Robert Rutherford, a United States House Representative from Virginia, and a nephew of Henry Bedinger III, also a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and later served as Chargé d'Affaires and Minister to Denmark for President Franklin Pierce. Washington was raised in a large family at Cedar Lawn, where he had four brothers and eight sisters:

• Lawrence Berry Washington (1811–1856)

• Daniel Bedinger Washington (born 1814)

• Virginia Thornton Washington (1816–1838)

• Sally Eleanor Washington (1818–1858)

• Georgiana Augusta Washington Smith (born 1822)

• Mary Elizabeth Washington Asbury (born 1824)

• John Thornton Augustine Washington (1826–1894)

• Mildred Berry Washington (September 3–12, 1827)

• Mildred Berry Washington Bedinger (1829–1871)

• George Washington (born 1830)

• Susan Ellsworth Washington Bedinger (born 1833)

• Henrietta Gray Washington (1835–1838)

Because of the large number of siblings in his family, Washington's inheritance from his father in 1841 was not sizable, and he and his brothers pursued a number of business opportunities to build their personal wealth.