Gowen Franklin Benjamin was an American lawyer. Also, he was elected a president of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad, for which he had been counsel since 1864.
Background
Franklin Benjamin Gowen was born on February 9, 1836, at Mount Airy (Philadelphia). He was the son of James Gowen who emigrated to the United States from Ireland in 1811, and Mary (Miller) Gowen, a daughter of James Miller of Mount Airy.
Upon his arrival, James Gowen settled in Philadelphia, where he became a successful merchant, acquiring a moderate fortune on which he retired to a farm at Mount Airy.
He became noted throughout the state of Pennsylvania as a breeder of shorthorn cattle.
Education
Early in his youth, Franklin Benjamin Gowen was sent to a Catholic school at Emmitsburg, Maryland, and from this institution, he was transferred to the Moravian school at Lititz, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where he finished his formal education.
Career
Gowen became a clerk in a store at Lancaster at the age of nineteen and two years later, accepted the superintendency of a furnace at Shamokin, Pennsylvania. Here he became acquainted with the vast resources of the anthracite coal fields, which had much to do with his later career.
For a time, he engaged in mining as a member of the firm of Turner & Gowen. He was admitted to the bar in May 1860 and acquired an extensive and lucrative practice. In 1862, he was elected district attorney of Schuylkill County.
He was elected a member of the constitutional convention of Pennsylvania in 1872 and took a conspicuous part in the work.
The most dramatic happening of his life was his work as counsel for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the prosecution of the Molly Maguires. This famous secret society had terrorized the anthracite coal regions for twenty years. Everybody knew when he undertook the work that he risked his life because he was dealing with a band of successful, experienced murderers.
He put detectives on the case, one of whom lived and worked among the members of the secret society for three years, ultimately becoming a member of the organization.
Upon the testimony of this man, and corroborating evidence gathered by Gowen himself, he procured the conviction and execution of a number of the leaders and broke up the organization.
In 1870, he was elected president of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad, for which he had been counsel since 1864.
His administration of the road was marked by great ability, but his record is marred by the fact that the Company encountered financial difficulty during his administration.
This was due, at least in part, to his policy of tying up the anthracite coal-mines with the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad. He planned, as he said in a report to stockholders, “to secure - and attach to the Company’s railroad - a body of coal-land capable of supplying all the coal-tonnage that can possibly be transported over the road. ”
The pursuit of this policy brought disaster. The Company defaulted on the interest of its obligations in 1880, and the road was placed in the hands of receivers by the United States circuit court.
Gowen continued to direct operations and the management of its finances, however, and it was later restored to the stockholders. Shortly afterward it passed through the second period of receivership.
Many of the properties which he acquired during the period of expansion subsequently became immensely profitable. After his resignation from the presidency of the Reading, Gowen practiced law and acquired a position of prééminence.
In December 1889 while in Washington, D. C. , to appear before the Interstate Commerce Commission in behalf of one of his clients, he committed suicide in his room at a hotel, by firing a bullet into his brain.
No satisfactory explanation could be found for his act; he was fifty-three years of age, in good health, at the height of his mental powers, well-to-do, and enjoying the respect of his contemporaries.