From NKAA, Notable Kentucky African Americans Database (main entry)

Born into slavery in Lexington, KY, Benjamin Franklin chose his name during his christening. In 1868 he traveled to Europe, assisting a sick man by the name of Newcomb. He returned to Kentucky and assisted Kentucky Chief Justice George Robertson, who had had a stroke.

Franklin was also a barber in Lexington, later moving the business to Midway. For about 40 years, he was a chiropodist in Lexington. He held several other jobs, all of which allowed him to accumulate considerable means, including bank stock.

His wife was Susan J. Britton Franklin (d. 1914), and their home, "designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style," was built in 1884 at 560 North Limestone Street in Lexington.

Benjamin Franklin died in 1935.

For more see Biographical Sketches of Prominent Negro Men and Women of Kentucky, by W. D. Johnson; Lexington, Heart of the Bluegrass, by J. D. Wright, Jr.; and Benjamin Franklin in "Colored Notes," Leader, 3/19/1935, p. 11 & 3/20/1935, pp. 7 & 17.