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Birth:          1695 prob. N.J.
Death:          25 Jan 1762 Chiswick, England
Cause of Death: gout
Burial:         Churchyard at Chiswick, England

Notes
deserted his family to accompany Benjamin Franklin to England in 1724
one of Franklin's closest friends, and is described by Franklin as genteel in his 
manners, ingenious, elegant
published poetry

deepeddy says born in England and settled in East Jersey as a man of "comfortable 
means"

from http://www.ulwaf.com/He-Usually/00zFranklin.html:

Benjamin Franklin Puts the Moves on My Ancestor's Girlfriend (1724-1902)
I’ve never been much for ascribing traits of a living person to the influence of a 
distant ancestor, whose genes are so mixed with those of others that they lose any 
meaning, yet in looking for my father — and pondering on his longing to become a writer 
— I was drawn to the distant past. 
I caught a glimpse of him in the stubborn race of the French Huguenots. His family 
name was French, and it comes from quercus, the Latin word for oak. His family, Les 
Garrigues, fled religious persecution in southern France; they made their way to 
Philadelphia and became Quakers.

Anecdote of a Distant Time
But I think I found more than a glimmer of him in eighteenth century Philadelphia, in a 
youth named James Ralph, who was perhaps Benjamin Franklin’s best friend. It may 
have been Ralph who was responsible for a kind of artlessness — and restlessness — 
that was passed down to my father, and to my father’s children, because Ralph was 
my father’s grandfather-preceded-by-five-greats. 
Ralph and my father were much alike, from a tendency to read poetry to their women 
to a longing for immortality through their words in print.

The young James Ralph wanted to be a poet, not a merchant as all the important 
people were then in Philadelphia. I found these words in Franklin’s Autobiography: 

Ralph was ingenious, genteel in his manners, and extremely eloquent; I think I never 
knew a prettier talker. Ralph was inclin'd to pursue the study of poetry, not doubting 
but he might become eminent in it, and make his fortune by it.
He married young, and when his friend Ben decided at the age of eighteen to go to 
London in 1724, James Ralph left behind him his wife and little girl and went off with 
Franklin to England. It didn’t take Ralph long to find romance. 
In our house there lodg'd a young woman, a milliner, who, I think, had a shop in the 
Cloisters. She had been genteelly bred, was sensible and lively, and of most pleasing 
conversation. Ralph read plays to her in the evenings, they grew intimate, she took 
another lodging, and he followed her.
The couple lived together for some time, but her sewing didn’t earn enough to support 
them both, with her child, so Ralph went to teach at a boys’ school in the country, 
where, oddly enough, he actually used the name “Benjamin Franklin” instead of his 
own, explaining to Franklin that when he became a famous poet he would not want 
anybody to know that he once had to engage in such undignified work as teaching. 
He continued to write frequently, sending me large specimens of an epic poem which 
he was then composing, and desiring my remarks and corrections. These I gave him 
from time to time, but endeavor'd rather to discourage his proceeding. All was in vain; 
sheets of the poem continued to come by every post.
While Ralph was away, Franklin took a new look at the milliner and tried to seduce 
her. She refused him, and when Ralph came back from the country, he, in effect, told 
his Pennsylvania chum to go to hell. 
Thus I spent about eighteen months in London. My friend Ralph had kept me poor; he 
owed me about twenty-seven pounds, which I was now never likely to receive; a great 
sum out of my small earnings! I lov'd him, notwithstanding, for he had many amiable 
qualities.
Franklin went home; Ralph stayed in England and in 1728 he published his poem, 
Night, which Alexander Pope ridiculed as mere howling. Decades later, when Franklin 
was in the Pennsylvania General Assembly, he returned to England and visited Ralph 
on his death bed. Franklin found that “he was esteem'd one of the best political writers 
in England” but his reputation was “indeed small as a poet, Pope having damned his 
poetry in the Dunciad; but his prose was thought as good as any man's.” 
Generations
In a library in Philadelphia I found the wife that Ralph left behind with a baby named 
Mary (she was either Hannah Ogden or her sister, Rebecca Ogden; the records differ). 
Mary grew up and married Samuel Garrigues, a grocer, who begat William, a carpentry 
inspector; who begat Samuel, a carpenter and farmer; who begat William, a constable; 
who begat Samuel Pierce, who was my father’s grandfather. 

from http://www.famousamericans.net/jamesralph/

James Ralph

RALPH, James, author, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, about 1695; died in 
Chiswick, England, 25 January, 1762. He was clerk to a conveyancer in Philadelphia, 
and about 1718 became the intimate associate of Benjamin Franklin, who describes 
him as his " inseparable companion, genteel in his manners, ingenious, extremely 
eloquent, and I never knew a prettier talker." He accompanied Franklin to London in 
1724, deserting his wife and child for his friend, and, being without money, lived at 
Franklin's expense. He afterward attempted to become an actor, and subsequently to 
edit and write for newspapers, but with little success. He then settled as a school-
master in Berkshire, secured the notice of Lord Melcombe, and obtained much 
notoriety as an adherent of the Prince of Wales's faction, employing his talents as 
pamphleteer, poet, and political journalist in the interest of that party. Toward the 
close of Sir Robert Walpole's administration he was bought off from the opposition, 
and at the accession of George III. received a pension, but lived to enjoy it hardly 
more than six months. Franklin says he " did his best to dissuade Ralph from 
attempting to become a poet, but he was not cured of scribbling verses till Pope 
attacked him in the lines in the "Dunciad," beginning: "Silence, ye wolves, while 
Ralph to Cynthia howls, And makes night hideous ; answer him, ye owls.'"He 
published "The Muses' Address to the King," an ode (London, 1728) ; " The Tempest 
" (1728) ; "The Touchstone," a volume of essays (1728); "Clarinda," a poem (1729); " 
Zeuma," a poem (1729) ; " A Taste of the Town, a Guide to all Pub-lick Diversions 
Answered" (1730) ; "The Fashionable Lady," a comedy (1730); " The Fall of the Earl 
of Essex" (1731) ; "A Critical View of the Publick Buildings of London " (1734) ; " The 
Groans of Germany," a political pamphlet, of which 15,000 copies were sold at once 
(1734) ; "The Use and Abuse of Parliament" (2 vols., 1744); the " History of England 
during the Reigns of King William, Queen Anne, and George I.," which Charles James 
Fox eulogized, and is a work of great merit as regards information (1744);" The Cause 
of Authors by Profession " (1758): "The History of Prince Titi" (Frederick, Prince of 
Wales), in manuscript, never published, by some ascribed to him; and many dramatic 
works, lampoons, and essays.

per Franklin's autobiography Ralph found relations in London when they were there 
but they were poor and unable to help financially

Handbook to the Environs of London, by James Thorne, on googlebooks gives place 
of burial
Birthplace from David McKay, The Fashionable Lady: The First Opera by an American, 
in oxfordjournals.org
other sources suggest he was born in Phila.
death cause from wiz2.cath.vt.ed/spenser/BiographyRecord.php?
action=GET&bioid=33912
[that page links to other bios of him]
one of them at id=35744, says Ralph went to England "to get away from his wife, with 
whose parents he had fallen out.." Also, "Ralph met some of his relations, but none of 
them were able to assist him,..."
Several say he was a schoolmaster, one saying that it was in Maryland.
Also need to see James Ralph: An Eighteenth-Century Philadelphian in Grub Street, on 
jstor



Marriage To OGDEN Rebekah (1697 - )
    m.  

Notes

Parents
OGDEN Jonathan (11 Jan 1639 - 3 Jan 1713)
WOOD Rebekah (Nov 1648 - 11 Sep 1723)

Children by OGDEN Rebekah 1697 - 
RALPH Mary Hannah (28 May 1724 - 29 Nov 1788)

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