From a Historical and Descriptive Sketch of Sonoma County, California, by Robert A. Thompson (Philadelphia: L. H. Everts & Co., 1877), p. 74-75:

Early in 1853 J. W. Ball came into the valley; he first located on the Farmer place, on the south side of Santa Rosa Creek. There a number of his family died of small-pox; he then moved over to the Boleau place, where Dr. Simms now lives, and kept there a sort of tavern and store. He bought ten acres of land at the junction of the Russian river, Bodega and Sonoma roads, where the cemetery land now intersects the Sonoma road, and laid off a town there, which was called Franklin-town. S. G. Clark and Dr. Boyce, who had bought out Ball, built and opened a store in Franklin. Ball had a tavern there; H. Beaver a blacksmith shop, and W. B. Birch a saddle-tree factory. In September, 1853, S. T. Coulter and W. H. McClure bought out Boyce & Clark.

The same fall the Baptist church, free to all denominations, was built. For a short time Franklin divided the attention of new comers with Santa Rosa and the "old adobe" [the Carrillo Family Californio-era home]. The selection of Santa Rosa as the county seat, in the fall of 1854, put an end to rivalry. Within the year following all the houses in Franklin were moved to the new county seat, including the church, which still stands on Third street, between E and D streets. In 1875 it was sold and converted into two tenement houses.

Barney Hoen, in a canvass of the county, promised that he and a few others would donate lots and build a court house, if the people would vote for the change. When it was known that Santa Rosa had won, an impromptu celebration was gotten up, anvils were fired, Hoen killed one beef, and Julio Carrillo another, for a free feast. The rejoicing was kept up for two days.

On the 18th of September the board of supervisors met in Sonoma, canvassed the returns, and passed an order declaring that Santa Rosa was the county seat of Sonoma county, --a majority of votes having been cast in favor of the change. Supervisor S. L. Fowler moved that the archives be removed to the new county seat on Friday, September 22, 1854, which passed unanimously. On the day appointed, Jim Williamson, with a four-horse team and wagon, acoompanied by Horace Martin and some others, went down to Sonoma, captured and brought up the archives, amid dire threats of injunctions and violence from the Sonoma people, who saw, with no little chargrin, the county seat slip through their fingers. The Santa Rosans had the law, wnated only possession, and would not have hesitated to use all the force necessary to get that; as it was, they captured the archives by strategy, and the dry and dusty documents of former drowsy old alcaldes were whirled over the road as fast as Jim Williamson's four-in-hand could take them to the new capital, where they safely arrived, and were deposited pro tem. in Julio Carrillo's house, which was rented for that purpose. The supervisors followed the records at a slower pace, and on the 20th of September, 1854, at five o'clock P. M., the board convened in Carrillo's house, and at that meeting Barney Hoen gave bonds to have a court house put up in six weeks, on the lots which had been donated by Hoen, Hahman & Hartman. With the aid of a man named Pinnard, a Frenchman, he had the work done within the time, and the county government occupied it...

From a History of Sonoma County, by J. P. Munro-Fraser (San Francisco: Alley, Bowen & Co., 1880), p. 388:

In the Spring of 1853, there arrived in the Santa Rosa valley one John W. Ball, who located on the south side of the Santa Rosa creek, but losing several children here from small-pox, which was epidemic in this year, removed to certain land, about three-fourths of a mile from the present city, the property of Oliver Boleau, a French Canadian, a part of whose house (now in the occupation of Dr. Simms) he rented, at one hundred and fifty dollars per month, and opened a small store and public house. The then direct road from the Russian river, the districts to the north of it, and Bodega country, to Sonoma, at that time the only place of export from the county, met at this point, therefore Boleau conceived the idea of here establishing a town. He had about half a mile square surveyed, and named it Franklin, after a brother in Canada; it was placed at the junction of the Sonoma road with the Fulkerson lane. That Spring, S. G. Clark, Dr. J. F. Boyce and Nute McClure bought out Ball and erected a small dry goods store of split redwoods, in size, twenty-four by thirty-six feet, where they continued business until the Fall, when the firm of Clark, Boyce & McClure was bought out by McCluer and Coulter. In the same season John Ball erected a wooden hotel, there being then in town H. Beaver, who kept a blacksmith shop, and W. B. Birch, a saddle-tree manufacturer, while in the early part of 1854 S. T. Coulter erected a dwelling house.

The selection of Santa Rosa as the capital of the county, put an end to all rivalry which may have existed between Franklin, the old adobe, and it. One by one the buildings erected in Franklin were transferred to Santa Rosa, until in 1855 their entire removal was effected; the first house in that short-lived city being now located on Eighth, between Wilson and Davis streets, occupied by J. T. Campbell, while that erected by Coulter is now the Boston saloon, on Fourth street. A Baptist Church, free to all denominations, which had been there constructed in the Fall of 1853, was also moved, and after serving the purpose for which it was originally built, on Third, between E and D streets, was, in 1875, sold and converted into two tenement houses. This was the first church built in the township and city.

From Resources of Santa Rosa Valley and the Town of Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, California, by R. A. Thompson (Santa Rosa: [Press Democrat], 1884), p. 60-62:

Mr. Meacham had purchased from Julio Carrillo eighty acres of land, just west of the Bolio [Boleau] tract, it being that portion of the present city [Santa Rosa] lying east of the late Plaza. The firm of Hoen & Co., purchased this tract of Mr. Meacham August 9th, 1863 -- "Say 70 1/2 acres, opposite Julio Carrillo's, for the sum of $1,600." About this time -- the Summer of 1853 -- it began to be very evident that there was going to be a town somewhere in the neighborhood of the Santa Rosa House [the old Carrillo adobe]. W. P. Ball, a blacksmith, had a shop and small house on the Bolio place. A town was laid out on the land of Bolio, just where what is known as Cemetery lane intersects the Sonoma road.

This was the point of junction of the Sonoma, Bodega and Russian River roads. It was a good town site one would think, and beautifully located. Dr. J. F. Boyce and S. G. Clark built a store there; Ball built another and an inn; H. Beaver started a blacksmith shop; C. Morehouse a wagon shop, and W. B. Brush a saddle-tree factory. The town took the name of Franklin Town -- a good name a town of "free men." But it did not survive. Why, it is difficult now to say. W. H. McClure and S. T. Coulter, present Master of the State Grange of the State of California, bought out Boyce & Clark. The Baptist Church was built. Mr. Coulter and Mr. Beaver had dwellings in Franklin Town. All this was in the year 1853. When the residents of Franklin Town heard of their having a formidable rival close at hand they smiled at the idea.

Hoen & Co... in August, had purchased a tract of land opposite Julio Carrillo's. The same month the original survey of the town of Santa Rosa was made by a man named Shakely. Carrillo agreed t ogive as much land for streets as the firm would give. The creek was taken as a base, and a northerly line was run to Fourth street, leaving the beautiful grove of oaks which stood in the late Plaza on the land of Hoen & Hahman, they donating one half of that square, and Julio Carrillo the other half. The original town plot included the land lying between Fourth and Fifth streets and between A and E streets.

Achilles Richardson had a small trading house on the creek, near the present iron bridge. When the town was laid out, Henry Valley purchased the first lots of the firm, and built the first house after the survey, and the third house in the town limits. The Masonic Hall was built in the Spring of 1854, and E. P. Colgan started a hotel in the lower story of the building.

In March, 1854, Mr. Hoen sold his interest at the "Old Adobe," and came down to the new town, and built a store on the southeast corner of D and Second streets. In the Spring of 1854 the town may be said to have been fairly launched. The county seat question was brewing. Bennett was incubating his bill in the Legislature the same month that Mr. Hoen moved. In May he introduced and passed his bill to submit the question of removal of the county seat to the people.

A grand joint celebration and electioneering high-jinks feast was held on the 4th of July, 1854, to show up the new town and to get votes for the proposed new seat. Everybody was invited; whole bullocks were barbecued; the fair sex graced the feast, and the fat of the land was spread under the shade of a grove of grand oaks on Commodore Elliott's farm, beneath which, until now, only the acorn-eating Indian and the grizzly had feasted. This barbecue was not far from the junction of McDonald avenue with Fourth street. The festivities closed with a grand ball at Hahman & Hartman's new store, on the northwest corner of C and Second streets, that firm having removed from the Old Adobe to the new and ambitious young village.

After this Fourth of July celebration Franklin Town collapsed; one by one the houses gravitated to Santa Rosa, some on rollers, some on wheels, some otherwise, but all came. The next Spring the purple lockspur and the yellow cupped poppy contended for supremacy on the site fo the hopeful cross-road village of the previous Spring.

Among the very first residents of Santa Rosa in addition to those mentioned, were Obe Rippeto, Jim Williamson, J. M. Case, John Ingram, Dr. Boyce, the late William Ross, Judge Temple, W. B. Atterbury, S. G. and J. P. Clark, Charles W. White and others whose names I cannot now recall. I shall not attempt to follow any further in detail the developments of the business of Santa Rosa; want of space forbids.

From the History of Sonoma California, by Tom Gregory (Historic Record Company, Los Angeles: 1911), pp. 157-158:

RISE AND FALL OF FRANKLIN TOWN.

While Santa Rosa --floral city of the plain--was in early bud, a near-city was growing up--in the night, as it were. Its forefathers called it Franklin Town. Why "Town" and with a big T, has never been told. Only a few of the old guard yet this side of the cemetery gates really remember Franklin Town. As it came, it passed away in the night, or rather, in the morning of its first-day-after.

Its site is just without the present city line on the east, near the reservoir hill. Some day, perhaps, the extension of the boundaries will take in the old place, and then Franklin Town will awake to life--becoming an addition to the Santa Rosa it sought to blight in tender flower. Chiefs of the city in embryo were Dr. J. F. Boyce--venerable "Doc Boyce" who medicined and surgeoned the later Santa Rosans for many a year and eccentric to the point of profanity, which often drove his patients to recover quickly and get him out of the sickroom; also S. T. Coulter -- good old "Squire Coulter," Pioneer Patron of Husbandry, Lord of the Sonoma Grange, and who didn't believe that the grass and herbs and the trees that bore fruit in their season were first sprouted on the Third Day of Creation, and said even Luther Burbank couldn't grow things that speedy. Now, deep under the turf these "old forefathers of the hamlet sleep," and heaven speed their run to the saints.

One feature that shines like a start through this dark Tale of a Lost City, is, Franklin Town had a church, then the only church in the county except the Mission Solano at Sonoma. Its faith was Baptist, though all shades of the "two and seventy jarring sects," as Omar Khayyam phrases them, were welcomed to use that sanctuary for the uplift of any possible sinful citizen of Franklin Town. The willow-bank creek consecrated by Parson Juan Amoroso when he baptized the Indian girl and called her La Rosa -- spiritual daughter of Santa Rosa de Lima -- splashed and bubbled pure as the Jordan when John came preaching in the wilderness, but it is not positively known that Doc Boyce or Squire Coulter ever availed themselves of the lustral waters flowing by Franklin Town, unless to wash a shirt.

But the finger of doom was writing on the clap-board walls of Franklin Town, Hoen, Hahmann and Hartman -- the triple H-builders of Santa Rosa, were housing up C -- now Main --- street. The diplomatic dads of the coming place got up a Welcome-To-Our-City barbecue, and when the Franklinites saw the hosts of all-invited guests gathering around the Santa Rosa flesh-pots, they also saw the finish of Franklin Town. Soon it was in transit, the Baptist church, on four wheels, led the way like the Ark of the Covenant before the immigrant Israelites herding to the Promised Land, and it afterwards was th pioneer tabernacle, upholding the doctrine of close-communion and total immersion in Santa Rosa, and fitting the aging citizens for another immigration -- into Eternity.

From "McCluer and Coulter / Merchants of Franklin, California / 1853 -1854," by Raymond L. Owen, The Sonoma Searcher, Volume 28, No. 1 (Santa Rosa: Sonoma County Genealogical Society, Fall 2000), p. 10:

To provide some perspective, mention of the town of Franklin is appropriate. Franklin was a town which preceded the founding of Santa Rosa. In 1850, Oliver Beaulieu purchased 640 acres from Julio Carrillo, the parcel being on the north side of Santa Rosa Creek and generally north of the Carrillo Adobe. A town was platted and lots sold for both residential and commercial use. Although there is some debate regarding the exact location of Franklin, in an unpublished master's thesis, Kim Diehl, graduate student at Sonoma State University, made a compelling argument that Franklin was located where the Flamingo Hotel now exits across Highway 12 from the north terminus of Farmers Lane in Santa Rosa.

Among the businesses in Franklin was a store owned by J. F. Boyce, S. G. Clark and Newton H. McCluer. In September 1853, the partnership changed to McCluer and Coulter, the inventory of goods having been taken on 14 September. On 20 March 1854, Coulter bought out McCluer. According to an article published in the newsletter of the Sonoma County Museum, the store was located at the present site of the Hillside Inn, which is very near the junction of Highway 12 and Farmers Lane. This is consistent with the findings of Kim Diehl.