Terry Martin       

                                                                                                                                 1251 Briarcliff Ct.

                                                                                                                                 Gallatin, TN 37066

                                                                                                                                 (615) 480-7683

                                                                                                                                 Email: muscadinelee@att.net

                                                                                                                                 October 25, 2017

Ms. Tracy Walker

Board of Directors Chairperson

Northern Virginia Urban League

1315 Duke Street

Alexandria, VA 22314

Dear Ms. Walker,

I was one of the descendants of the Franklin family who contributed an awareness statement in a document along with the other descendants who met with you at the Freedom House Museum on Monday, September 25. I wasn’t with the group, but was given your address by Mr. W. T. Whitney who was one of the leaders of the group.

My great-great grandfather, Dr. Edward Noel Franklin, along with his two siblings, was raised in the household of John and Martha Armfield. Martha was their father’s sister. He gave the three children to his sister to raise after his wife died. Isaac Franklin was the children’s great uncle. I have a set of 27 letters that Edward wrote in 1871 that include within them a first-hand account of the death of John Armfield. I have written a short book of family history to go with the letters and expect to self-publish the work soon. When I have it published I will happily send a copy.

I made an attempt to email someone connected with the museum a few months ago. I sent my email on August 3 to the following email address: freedomhouse@nvul.org.  I did not receive a reply, and though I got the email address off your websites, perhaps it is no longer valid.

Though I have never yet been to the museum, photographs of the interior and of the displays can be found on the internet. I noticed in those online photographs that an exhibit in your museum features images of Isaac Franklin and John Armfield. I wanted to inform you that the image of John Armfield is not accurate. The image you are using is actually John Armfield Franklin. He was one of those three siblings raised by the Armfields.

The original image is a large image, an original cyrstoleum from the 1860s, perhaps around 20 inches square, in the possession of another Franklin descendant, Kenneth Thomson of Gallatin, Tennessee. Kenneth is a local historian, very familiar with the histories of Franklin and Armfield. He was one of the key persons that Edward Ball interviewed for his Smithsonian article, “Retracing Slavery’s Trail of Tears,” a couple of years ago. There is a photo of Kenneth in the Smithsonian article showing him sitting in his parlor. There is a painting of Isaac Franklin on his wall, and above that painting is the original image of John Armfield Franklin that you are using a copy of in your museum. Kenneth is a friend (and distant cousin) of mine; the image is still there, and we have discussed this.

I have a suspicion as to how the mistake occurred, but it is just a guess. Many years ago, Kenneth gave a color photographic copy of that image to the owners of Spring Haven mansion, known long ago as “Hard Times”. That was the home in Sumner County, Tennessee, in Hendersonville, where the Armfields lived back in the 1850s before they moved to Beersheba Springs, Tennessee. It seems the owner of the home misunderstood the identity of the image when Kenneth gave it to him, or maybe he later forgot the details. He seemed to think it was John Armfield and included it inside a shadow box display that to this day continues to hang in the stairwell at Spring Haven mansion. I suspect that your archivist may have gone to Spring Haven mansion as a part of his/her research and copied that image for using it in the museum. Either that, or somehow the image ended up on Google Images, and the archivist took the image from the internet. In any event, the actual identity of the young man in the image has been misconstrued. It would be easy to misidentify the image considering how close the names are to each other, as obviously John Armfield Franklin was named for John Armfield.

The image continues to be misidentified. When the Beersheba Springs Historical Society republished Isabel Howell’s biography of John Armfield a few years ago, their historian, Clopper Almon, who was the one who put the new publication together, used that image as John Armfield on the back cover of the newly printed book. He admitted in a recent email to me that he got that image from the Freedom House Museum.

If you should require more information about the image, you should contact Kenneth Thomson, the owner of the original image. He can give you its history. His email address is as follows: rhinescottage@gmail.com

I have copied the image below, so you will be able to compare with the image you have in your display. I am certainly sorry to be the one to bring up to you the misidentification. I am sure much money and time was invested in the creation of the display and that any changes you might choose to make might also involve time and money.

As to an actual genuine image of John Armfield, as far I know from the limited research I myself have done, there are only two, and one of the two is disputed by its current owner. I will copy those two images below, as well. It could be that there are other images of John Armfield, but I am not aware of them. Kenneth Thomson does not have any original images of John Armfield (though he and I both have other images of John Armfield Franklin, and Kenneth has one painting of Isaac Franklin).

As a temporary fix, you might choose to print off an enlarged photocopy of the one, undisputed image of John Armfield and tape it over the image in your museum.

This is the image that I am writing to you about that you are using in your museum display as John Armfield but is actually John Armfield Franklin:

The following is an image that is known by most people as being John Armfield. However, the owner of the original painting (who lives in New Hampshire) continues to believe that it is Isaac Franklin. The disputed image can be found on the Tennessee Portrait Projects website at the following website address: http://www.tnportraits.org/29818-franklin.htm and the fact that the identity of the individual is disputed is mentioned on that website page. The image was contributed to that website by the Tennessee State Library and Archives, though, as I said, the original painting belongs to the person in New Hampshire.

The following image is of both John Armfield and his wife Martha Franklin Armfield (the niece of Isaac Franklin). These images are not disputed by anybody. As far as I know from my limited research it is the only undisputed image of John Armfield:

As you may know, Dr. Joshua Rothman at the University of Alabama is currently researching Franklin and Armfield. It is possible he has come across other images of John Armfield during his research.

If I can be of assistance to you in any way, then by all means feel free to contact me. My email is muscadinelee@att.net and my home address is 1251 Briarcliff Ct., Gallatin, Tennessee 37066. Emailing me is a very quick way of contacting me.

I noticed this morning that the website for your museum, www.freedomhousemuseum.org, is no longer working. I don’t know if anyone has brought it to your attention. Perhaps the host server is no longer functioning, or perhaps it being down was only temporary. I hope you are able to get the site up and running again soon.

Kindest regards,

Terry Martin,

Gallatin, Tennessee