<h4><SPAN name="I" id="I" />I</h4>
<h4>ANCESTRY AND EARLY YOUTH IN BOSTON</h4>
<p class="right"><b><small><span class="smcap">Twyford</span>,<SPAN name="FNanchor_3" id="FNanchor_3" /><SPAN href="#Footnote_3" class=
"fnanchor">[3]</SPAN> <i>at the Bishop of St. Asaph's</i>,
1771.</small></b></p>
<p><ANTIMG src="images/block-d.jpg" class="floatLeft" alt="block-d" />
EAR SON: I have ever had pleasure in obtaining any little anecdotes
of my ancestors. You may remember the inquiries I made among the
remains of my relations when you were with me in England, and the
journey I undertook for that purpose. Imagining it may be equally
agreeable to you to know the circumstances of my life, many of
which you are yet unacquainted with, and expecting the enjoyment of
a week's uninterrupted leisure in my present country retirement, I
sit down to write them for you. To which I have besides some other
inducements. Having emerged from the poverty and obscurity in which
I was born and bred, to a state of affluence and some degree of
reputation in the world, and having gone so far through life with a
considerable share of felicity, the conducing means I made use of,
which with the blessing of God so well succeeded, my posterity may
like to know, as they may find some of them suitable to their own
situations, and therefore fit to be imitated.</p>
<p>That felicity, when I reflected on it, has induced me sometimes
to say, that were it offered to my choice, I should have no
objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only
asking the advantages authors have in a second edition to correct
some faults of the first. So I might, besides correcting the
faults, change some sinister accidents and events of it for others
more favourable. But though this were denied, I should still accept
the offer. Since such a repetition is not to be expected, the next
thing most like living one's life over again seems to be a
recollection of that life, and to make that recollection as durable
as possible by putting it down in writing.</p>
<p>Hereby, too, I shall indulge the inclination so natural in old
men, to be talking of themselves and their own past actions; and I
shall indulge it without being tiresome to others, who, through
respect to age, might conceive themselves obliged to give me a
hearing, since this may be read or not as anyone pleases. And,
lastly (I may as well confess it, since my denial of it will be
believed by nobody), perhaps I shall a good deal gratify my own
<i>vanity</i>.<SPAN name="FNanchor_4" id="FNanchor_4" /><SPAN href=
"#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</SPAN> Indeed, I scarce ever heard
or saw the introductory words, "<i>Without vanity I may say</i>,"
etc., but some vain thing immediately followed. Most people dislike
vanity in others, whatever share they have of it themselves; but I
give it fair quarter wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that
it is often productive of good to the possessor, and to others that
are within his sphere of action; and therefore, in many cases, it
would not be altogether absurd if a man were to thank God for his
vanity among the other comforts of life.</p>
<p>Gibbon and Hume, the great British historians, who were
contemporaries of Franklin, express in their autobiographies the
same feeling about the propriety of just self-praise.</p>
<p>And now I speak of thanking God, I desire with all humility to
acknowledge that I owe the mentioned happiness of my past life to
His kind providence, which lead me to the means I used and gave
them success. My belief of this induces me to <i>hope</i>, though I
must not <i>presume</i>, that the same goodness will still be
exercised toward me, in continuing that happiness, or enabling me
to bear a fatal reverse, which I may experience as others have
done; the complexion of my future fortune being known to Him only
in whose power it is to bless to us even our afflictions.</p>
<p>The notes one of my uncles (who had the same kind of curiosity
in collecting family anecdotes) once put into my hands, furnished
me with several particulars relating to our ancestors. From these
notes I learned that the family had lived in the same village,
Ecton, in Northamptonshire,<SPAN name="FNanchor_5" id=
"FNanchor_5" /><SPAN href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</SPAN> for
three hundred years, and how much longer he knew not (perhaps from
the time when the name of Franklin, that before was the name of an
order of people,<SPAN name="FNanchor_6" id="FNanchor_6" /><SPAN href=
"#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</SPAN> was assumed by them as a
surname when others took surnames all over the kingdom), on a
freehold of about thirty acres, aided by the smith's business,
which had continued in the family till his time, the eldest son
being always bred to that business; a custom which he and my father
followed as to their eldest sons. When I searched the registers at
Ecton, I found an account of their births, marriages and burials
from the year 1555 only, there being no registers kept in that
parish at any time preceding. By that register I perceived that I
was the youngest son of the youngest son for five generations back.
My grandfather Thomas, who was born in 1598, lived at Ecton till he
grew too old to follow business longer, when he went to live with
his son John, a dyer at Banbury, in Oxfordshire, with whom my
father served an apprenticeship. There my grandfather died and lies
buried. We saw his gravestone in 1758. His eldest son Thomas lived
in the house at Ecton, and left it with the land to his only child,
a daughter, who, with her husband, one Fisher, of Wellingborough,
sold it to Mr. Isted, now lord of the manor there. My grandfather
had four sons that grew up, viz.: Thomas, John, Benjamin and
Josiah. I will give you what account I can of them at this distance
from my papers, and if these are not lost in my absence, you will
among them find many more particulars.</p>
<p>Thomas was bred a smith under his father; but, being ingenious,
and encouraged in learning (as all my brothers were) by an Esquire
Palmer, then the principal gentleman in that parish, he qualified
himself for the business of scrivener; became a considerable man in
the county; was a chief mover of all public-spirited undertakings
for the county or town of Northampton, and his own village, of
which many instances were related of him; and much taken notice of
and patronized by the then Lord Halifax. He died in 1702, January
6, old style,<SPAN name="FNanchor_7" id="FNanchor_7" /><SPAN href=
"#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</SPAN> just four years to a day
before I was born. The account we received of his life and
character from some old people at Ecton, I remember, struck you as
something extraordinary, from its similarity to what you knew of
mine. "Had he died on the same day," you said, "one might have
supposed a transmigration."</p>
<p>John was bred a dyer, I believe of woollens, Benjamin was bred a
silk dyer, serving an apprenticeship at London. He was an ingenious
man. I remember him well, for when I was a boy he came over to my
father in Boston, and lived in the house with us some years. He
lived to a great age. His grandson, Samuel Franklin, now lives in
Boston. He left behind him two quarto volumes, MS., of his own
poetry, consisting of little occasional pieces addressed to his
friends and relations, of which the following, sent to me, is a
specimen.<SPAN name="FNanchor_8" id="FNanchor_8" /><SPAN href=
"#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</SPAN> He had formed a short-hand
of his own, which he taught me, but, never practising it, I have
now forgot it. I was named after this uncle, there being a
particular affection between him and my father. He was very pious,
a great attender of sermons of the best preachers, which he took
down in his short-hand, and had with him many volumes of them. He
was also much of a politician; too much, perhaps, for his station.
There fell lately into my hands, in London, a collection he had
made of all the principal pamphlets relating to public affairs,
from 1641 to 1717; many of the volumes are wanting as appears by
the numbering, but there still remain eight volumes in folio, and
twenty-four in quarto and in octavo. A dealer in old books met with
them, and knowing me by my sometimes buying of him, he brought them
to me. It seems my uncle must have left them here when he went to
America, which was about fifty years since. There are many of his
notes in the margins.</p>
<p>This obscure family of ours was early in the Reformation, and
continued Protestants through the reign of Queen Mary, when they
were sometimes in danger of trouble on account of their zeal
against popery. They had got an English Bible, and to conceal and
secure it, it was fastened open with tapes under and within the
cover of a joint-stool. When my great-great-grandfather read it to
his family, he turned up the joint-stool upon his knees, turning
over the leaves then under the tapes. One of the children stood at
the door to give notice if he saw the apparitor coming, who was an
officer of the spiritual court. In that case the stool was turned
down again upon its feet, when the Bible remained concealed under
it as before. This anecdote I had from my uncle Benjamin. The
family continued all of the Church of England till about the end of
Charles the Second's reign, when some of the ministers that had
been outed for non-conformity, holding conventicles<SPAN name=
"FNanchor_9" id="FNanchor_9" /><SPAN href="#Footnote_9" class=
"fnanchor">[9]</SPAN> in Northamptonshire, Benjamin and Josiah adhered
to them, and so continued all their lives: the rest of the family
remained with the Episcopal Church.</p>
<div class="figcenter"><ANTIMG src= "images/illus-006-red.jpg" alt= "Birthplace of Franklin. Milk Street, Boston" title= "Birthplace of Franklin. Milk Street, Boston" /></div>
<div class="center_caption">Birthplace of Franklin. Milk Street,
Boston.</div>
<p>Josiah, my father, married young, and carried his wife with
three children into New England, about 1682. The conventicles
having been forbidden by law, and frequently disturbed, induced
some considerable men of his acquaintance to remove to that
country, and he was prevailed with to accompany them thither, where
they expected to enjoy their mode of religion with freedom. By the
same wife he had four children more born there, and by a second
wife ten more, in all seventeen; of which I remember thirteen
sitting at one time at his table, who all grew up to be men and
women, and married; I was the youngest son, and the youngest child
but two, and was born in Boston, New England.<SPAN name="FNanchor_10" id="FNanchor_10" /><SPAN href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</SPAN>
My mother, the second wife, was Abiah Folger, daughter of Peter
Folger, one of the first settlers of New England, of whom honorable
mention is made by Cotton Mather,<SPAN name="FNanchor_11" id=
"FNanchor_11" /><SPAN href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</SPAN> in
his church history of that country, entitled <i>Magnalia Christi
Americana</i>, as "<i>a godly, learned Englishman</i>," if I
remember the words rightly. I have heard that he wrote sundry small
occasional pieces, but only one of them was printed, which I saw
now many years since. It was written in 1675, in the home-spun
verse of that time and people, and addressed to those then
concerned in the government there. It was in favour of liberty of
conscience, and in behalf of the Baptists, Quakers, and other
sectaries that had been under persecution, ascribing the Indian
wars, and other distresses that had befallen the country, to that
persecution, as so many judgments of God to punish so heinous an
offense, and exhorting a repeal of those uncharitable laws. The
whole appeared to me as written with a good deal of decent
plainness and manly freedom. The six concluding lines I remember,
though I have forgotten the two first of the stanza; but the
purport of them was, that his censures proceeded from good-will,
and, therefore, he would be known to be the author.</p>
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i2">"Because to be a libeller (says he)</div>
<div class="i2b">I hate it with my heart;</div>
<div class="i2">From Sherburne town,<SPAN name="FNanchor_12" id=
"FNanchor_12" /><SPAN href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</SPAN>
where now I dwell</div>
<div class="i2b">My name I do put here;</div>
<div class="i2">Without offense your real friend,</div>
<div class="i2b">It is Peter Folgier."</div>
</div></div>
<p>My elder brothers were all put apprentices to different trades.
I was put to the grammar-school at eight years of age, my father
intending to devote me, as the tithe<SPAN name="FNanchor_13" id=
"FNanchor_13" /><SPAN href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</SPAN> of
his sons, to the service of the Church. My early readiness in
learning to read (which must have been very early, as I do not
remember when I could not read), and the opinion of all his
friends, that I should certainly make a good scholar, encouraged
him in this purpose of his. My uncle Benjamin, too, approved of it,
and proposed to give me all his short-hand volumes of sermons, I
suppose as a stock to set up with, if I would learn his
character.<SPAN name="FNanchor_14" id="FNanchor_14" /><SPAN href=
"#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</SPAN> I continued, however, at
the grammar-school not quite one year, though in that time I had
risen gradually from the middle of the class of that year to be the
head of it, and farther was removed into the next class above it,
in order to go with that into the third at the end of the year. But
my father, in the meantime, from a view of the expense of a college
education, which having so large a family he could not well afford,
and the mean living many so educated were afterwards able to
obtain—reasons that he gave to his friends in my
hearing—altered his first intention, took me from the
grammar-school, and sent me to a school for writing and arithmetic,
kept by a then famous man, Mr. George Brownell, very successful in
his profession generally, and that by mild, encouraging methods.
Under him I acquired fair writing pretty soon, but I failed in the
arithmetic, and made no progress in it. At ten years old I was
taken home to assist my father in his business, which was that of a
tallow-chandler and sope-boiler; a business he was not bred to, but
had assumed on his arrival in New England, and on finding his
dyeing trade would not maintain his family, being in little
request. Accordingly, I was employed in cutting wick for the
candles, filling the dipping mould and the moulds for cast candles,
attending the shop, going of errands, etc.</p>
<p>I disliked the trade, and had a strong inclination for the sea,
but my father declared against it; however, living near the water,
I was much in and about it, learnt early to swim well, and to
manage boats; and when in a boat or canoe with other boys, I was
commonly allowed to govern, especially in any case of difficulty;
and upon other occasions I was generally a leader among the boys,
and sometimes led them into scrapes, of which I will mention one
instance, as it shows an early projecting public spirit, tho' not
then justly conducted.</p>
<p>There was a salt-marsh that bounded part of the mill-pond, on
the edge of which, at high water, we used to stand to fish for
minnows. By much trampling, we had made it a mere quagmire. My
proposal was to build a wharf there fit for us to stand upon, and I
showed my comrades a large heap of stones, which were intended for
a new house near the marsh, and which would very well suit our
purpose. Accordingly, in the evening, when the workmen were gone, I
assembled a number of my playfellows, and working with them
diligently like so many emmets, sometimes two or three to a stone,
we brought them all away and built our little wharf. The next
morning the workmen were surprised at missing the stones, which
were found in our wharf. Inquiry was made after the removers; we
were discovered and complained of; several of us were corrected by
our fathers; and, though I pleaded the usefulness of the work, mine
convinced me that nothing was useful which was not honest.</p>
<p>I think you may like to know something of his person and
character. He had an excellent constitution of body, was of middle
stature, but well set, and very strong; he was ingenious, could
draw prettily, was skilled a little in music, and had a clear,
pleasing voice, so that when he played psalm tunes on his violin
and sung withal, as he sometimes did in an evening after the
business of the day was over, it was extremely agreeable to hear.
He had a mechanical genius too, and, on occasion, was very handy in
the use of other tradesmen's tools; but his great excellence lay in
a sound understanding and solid judgment in prudential matters,
both in private and publick affairs. In the latter, indeed, he was
never employed, the numerous family he had to educate and the
straitness of his circumstances keeping him close to his trade; but
I remember well his being frequently visited by leading people, who
consulted him for his opinion in affairs of the town or of the
church he belonged to, and showed a good deal of respect for his
judgment and advice: he was also much consulted by private persons
about their affairs when any difficulty occurred, and frequently
chosen an arbitrator between contending parties. At his table he
liked to have, as often as he could, some sensible friend or
neighbor to converse with, and always took care to start some
ingenious or useful topic for discourse, which might tend to
improve the minds of his children. By this means he turned our
attention to what was good, just, and prudent in the conduct of
life; and little or no notice was ever taken of what related to the
victuals on the table, whether it was well or ill dressed, in or
out of season, of good or bad flavor, preferable or inferior to
this or that other thing of the kind, so that I was bro't up in
such a perfect inattention to those matters as to be quite
indifferent what kind of food was set before me, and so unobservant
of it, that to this day if I am asked I can scarce tell a few hours
after dinner what I dined upon. This has been a convenience to me
in traveling, where my companions have been sometimes very unhappy
for want of a suitable gratification of their more delicate,
because better instructed, tastes and appetites.</p>
<p>My mother had likewise an excellent constitution: she suckled
all her ten children. I never knew either my father or mother to
have any sickness but that of which they dy'd, he at 89, and she at
85 years of age. They lie buried together at Boston, where I some
years since placed a marble over their grave,<SPAN name="FNanchor_15" id="FNanchor_15" /><SPAN href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</SPAN>
with this inscription:</p>
<div class="center"><span class="smcap2">Josiah
Franklin</span>,</div>
<div class="center_small2">and</div>
<div class="center_small2"><span class="smcap2">Abiah</span> his
wife,</div>
<div class="center_small2">lie here interred.</div>
<div class="center_small2">They lived lovingly together in
wedlock</div>
<div class="center_small2">fifty-five years.</div>
<div class="center_small2">Without an estate, or any gainful
employment,</div>
<div class="center_small2">By constant labor and industry,</div>
<div class="center_small2">with God's blessing,</div>
<div class="center_small2">They maintained a large family</div>
<div class="center_small2">comfortably,</div>
<div class="center_small2">and brought up thirteen children</div>
<div class="center_small2">and seven grandchildren</div>
<div class="center_small2">reputably.</div>
<div class="center_small2">From this instance, reader,</div>
<div class="center_small2">Be encouraged to diligence in thy
calling,</div>
<div class="center_small2">And distrust not Providence.</div>
<div class="center_small2">He was a pious and prudent man;</div>
<div class="center_small2">She, a discreet and virtuous
woman.</div>
<div class="center_small2">Their youngest son,</div>
<div class="center_small2">In filial regard to their memory,</div>
<div class="center_small2">Places this stone.</div>
<div class="center_small2">J. F. born 1655, died 1744, Ætat
89.</div>
<div class="center_small2">A. F. born 1667, died 1752,
—— 85.</div>
<p>By my rambling digressions I perceive myself to be grown old. I
us'd to write more methodically. But one does not dress for private
company as for a publick ball. 'Tis perhaps only negligence.</p>
<p>To return: I continued thus employed in my father's business for
two years, that is, till I was twelve years old; and my brother
John, who was bred to that business, having left my father,
married, and set up for himself at Rhode Island, there was all
appearance that I was destined to supply his place, and become a
tallow-chandler. But my dislike to the trade continuing, my father
was under apprehensions that if he did not find one for me more
agreeable, I should break away and get to sea, as his son Josiah
had done, to his great vexation. He therefore sometimes took me to
walk with him, and see joiners, bricklayers, turners, braziers,
etc., at their work, that he might observe my inclination, and
endeavor to fix it on some trade or other on land. It has ever
since been a pleasure to me to see good workmen handle their tools;
and it has been useful to me, having learnt so much by it as to be
able to do little jobs myself in my house when a workman could not
readily be got, and to construct little machines for my
experiments, while the intention of making the experiment was fresh
and warm in my mind. My father at last fixed upon the cutler's
trade, and my uncle Benjamin's son Samuel, who was bred to that
business in London, being about that time established in Boston, I
was sent to be with him some time on liking. But his expectations
of a fee with me displeasing my father, I was taken home again.</p>
<div class="footnote">
<p><SPAN name="Footnote_3" id="Footnote_3" /><SPAN href=
"#FNanchor_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></SPAN> A small village
not far from Winchester in Hampshire, southern England. Here was
the country seat of the Bishop of St. Asaph, Dr. Jonathan Shipley,
the "good Bishop," as Dr. Franklin used to style him. Their
relations were intimate and confidential. In his pulpit, and in the
House of Lords, as well as in society, the bishop always opposed
the harsh measures of the Crown toward the
Colonies.—Bigelow.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><SPAN name="Footnote_4" id="Footnote_4" /><SPAN href=
"#FNanchor_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></SPAN> In this connection
Woodrow Wilson says, "And yet the surprising and delightful thing
about this book (the <i>Autobiography</i>) is that, take it all in
all, it has not the low tone of conceit, but is a staunch man's
sober and unaffected assessment of himself and the circumstances of
his career."</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><SPAN name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5" /><SPAN href=
"#FNanchor_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></SPAN> See <SPAN href=
"#INTRODUCTION"><i>Introduction</i></SPAN>.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><SPAN name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6" /><SPAN href=
"#FNanchor_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></SPAN> A small
landowner.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><SPAN name="Footnote_7" id="Footnote_7" /><SPAN href=
"#FNanchor_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></SPAN> January 17, new
style. This change in the calendar was made in 1582 by Pope Gregory
XIII, and adopted in England in 1752. Every year whose number in
the common reckoning since Christ is not divisible by 4, as well as
every year whose number is divisible by 100 but not by 400, shall
have 365 days, and all other years shall have 366 days. In the
eighteenth century there was a difference of eleven days between
the old and the new style of reckoning, which the English
Parliament canceled by making the 3rd of September, 1752, the 14th.
The Julian calendar, or "old style," is still retained in Russia
and Greece, whose dates consequently are now 13 days behind those
of other Christian countries.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><SPAN name="Footnote_8" id="Footnote_8" /><SPAN href=
"#FNanchor_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></SPAN> The specimen is
not in the manuscript of the <i>Autobiography</i>.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><SPAN name="Footnote_9" id="Footnote_9" /><SPAN href=
"#FNanchor_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></SPAN> Secret gatherings
of dissenters from the established Church.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><SPAN name="Footnote_10" id="Footnote_10" /><SPAN href=
"#FNanchor_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></SPAN> Franklin was
born on Sunday, January 6, old style, 1706, in a house on Milk
Street, opposite the Old South Meeting House, where he was baptized
on the day of his birth, during a snowstorm. The house where he was
born was burned in 1810.—Griffin.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><SPAN name="Footnote_11" id="Footnote_11" /><SPAN href=
"#FNanchor_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></SPAN> Cotton Mather
(1663-1728), clergyman, author, and scholar. Pastor of the North
Church, Boston. He took an active part in the persecution of
witchcraft.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><SPAN name="Footnote_12" id="Footnote_12" /><SPAN href=
"#FNanchor_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></SPAN> Nantucket.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><SPAN name="Footnote_13" id="Footnote_13" /><SPAN href=
"#FNanchor_13"><span class="label">[13]</span></SPAN> Tenth.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><SPAN name="Footnote_14" id="Footnote_14" /><SPAN href=
"#FNanchor_14"><span class="label">[14]</span></SPAN> System of
short-hand.</p>
</div>
<div class="footnote">
<p><SPAN name="Footnote_15" id="Footnote_15" /><SPAN href=
"#FNanchor_15"><span class="label">[15]</span></SPAN> This marble
having decayed, the citizens of Boston in 1827 erected in its place
a granite obelisk, twenty-one feet high, bearing the original
inscription quoted in the text and another explaining the erection
of the monument.</p>
</div>
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