I have amused myself with collecting some little anecdotes of my
family. You may remember the enquiries I made, when you were with
me in England, among such of my relations as were then living; and
the journey I undertook for that purpose. To be acquainted with the
particulars of my parentage and life, many of which are unknown to
you, I flatter myself will afford the same pleasure to you as to me.
I shall relate them upon paper: it will be an agreeable employment
of a week's uninterrupted leisure, which I promise myself during
my present retirement in the country. There are also other motives
which induce me to the undertaking. From the bosom of poverty and
obscurity, in which I drew my first breath, and spent my earliest
years, I have raised myself to a state of opulence and to some degree
of celebrity in the world. A constant good fortune has attended me
through every period of life to my present advanced age; and my
descendants may be desirous of learning what were the means of which
I made use, and which, thanks to the assisting hand of providence,
have proved so eminently successful. They may also, should they ever
be placed in a similar situation, derive some advantage from my
narrative.
When I reflect, as I frequently do, upon the felicity I have enjoyed,
I sometimes say to myself, that, were the offer made me, I would
engage to run again, from beginning to end, the same career of life.
All I would ask, should be the privilege of an author, to correct,
in a second edition, certain errors of the first. I could wish,
likewise if it were in my power, to change some trivial incidents
and events for others more favourable. Were this, however, denied
me, still would I not decline the offer. But since a repetition of
life cannot take place, there is nothing which, in my opinion, so
nearly resembles it, as to call to mind all its circumstances, and,
to render their remembrance more durable, commit them to writing. By
thus employing myself, I shall yield to the inclination, so natural
in old men, to talk of themselves and their exploits, and may freely
follow my bent, without being tiresome to those who, from respect
to my age, might think themselves obliged to listen to me; as they
will be at liberty to read me or not as they please. In fine--and I
may as well avow it, since nobody would believe me were I to deny
it--I shall perhaps, by this employment, gratify my vanity. Scarcely
indeed have I ever read or heard the introductory phrase, "_I may
say without vanity_," but some striking and characteristic instance
of vanity has immediately followed. The generality of men hate
vanity in others, however strongly they may be tinctured with it
themselves: for myself, I pay obeisance to it wherever I meet with
it, persuaded that it is advantageous, as well to the individual whom
it governs, as to those who are within the sphere of its influence.
Of consequence, it would in many cases, not be wholly absurd, that a
man should count his vanity among the other sweets of life, and give
thanks to providence for the blessing.
And here let me with all humility acknowledge, that to divine
providence I am indebted for the felicity I have hitherto enjoyed.
It is that power alone which has furnished me with the means I
have employed, and that has crowned them with success. My faith in
this respect leads me to hope, though I cannot count upon it, that
the divine goodness will still be exercised towards me, either by
prolonging the duration of my happiness to the close of life, or by
giving me fortitude to support any melancholy reverse, which may
happen to me, as to so many others. My future fortune is unknown
but to Him in whose hand is our destiny, and who can make our very
afflictions subservient to our benefit.
One of my uncles, desirous, like myself, of collecting anecdotes
of our family, gave me some notes, from which I have derived many
particulars respecting our ancestors. From these I learn, that
they had lived in the same village (Eaton in Northamptonshire,)
upon a freehold of about thirty acres, for the space at least of
three hundred years. How long they had resided there prior to that
period, my uncle had been unable to discover; probably ever since
the institution of surnames, when they took the appellation of
Franklin, which had formerly been the name of a particular order of
individuals.[1]
This petty estate would not have sufficed for their subsistence, had
they not added the trade of blacksmith, which was perpetuated in the
family down to my uncle's time, the eldest son having been uniformly
brought up to this employment: a custom which both he and my father
observed with respect to their eldest sons.
In the researches I made at Eaton, I found no account of their
births, marriages, and deaths, earlier than the year 1555; the
parish register not extending farther back than that period. This
register informed me, that I was the youngest son of the youngest
branch of the family, counting five generations. My grandfather,
Thomas, who was born in 1598, lived at Eaton till he was too old to
continue his trade, when he retired to Banbury in Oxfordshire, where
his son John, who was a dyer, resided, and with whom my father was
apprenticed. He died, and was buried there: we saw his monument in
1758. His eldest son lived in the family house at Eaton, which he
bequeathed, with the land belonging to it, to his only daughter; who,
in concert with her husband, Mr. Fisher of Wellingborough, afterwards
sold it to Mr. Estead, the present proprietor.
My grandfather had four surviving sons, Thomas, John, Benjamin, and
Josias. I shall give you such particulars of them as my memory will
furnish, not having my papers here, in which you will find a more
minute account, if they are not lost during my absence.
Thomas had learned the trade of a blacksmith under his father; but
possessing a good natural understanding, he improved it by study,
at the solicitation of a gentleman of the name of Palmer, who was
at that time the principal inhabitant of the village, and who
encouraged, in like manner, all my uncles to cultivate their minds.
Thomas thus rendered himself competent to the functions of a country
attorney; soon became an essential personage in the affairs of the
village; and was one of the chief movers of every public enterprise,
as well relative to the county as the town of Northampton. A variety
of remarkable incidents were told us of him at Eaton. After enjoying
the esteem and patronage of Lord Halifax, he died, January 6, 1702,
precisely four years before I was born. The recital that was made
us of his life and character, by some aged persons of the village,
struck you, I remember, as extraordinary, from its analogy to what
you knew of myself. "Had he died," said you, "just four years later,
one might have supposed a transmigration of souls."
John, to the best of my belief, was brought up to the trade of a
wool-dyer.
Benjamin served his apprenticeship in London to a silk-dyer. He was
an industrious man: I remember him well; for, while I was a child,
he joined my father at Boston, and lived for some years in the house
with us. A particular affection had always subsisted between my
father and him; and I was his godson. He arrived to a great age. He
left behind him two quarto volumes of poems in manuscript, consisting
of little fugitive pieces addressed to his friends. He had invented
a short-hand, which he taught me, but having never made use of it,
I have now forgotten it. He was a man of piety, and a constant
attendant on the best preachers, whose sermons he took a pleasure in
writing down according, to the expeditory method he had devised. Many
volumes were thus collected by him. He was also extremely fond of
politics, too much so, perhaps, for his situation. I lately found in
London a collection which he had made of all the principal pamphlets
relative to public affairs, from the year 1641 to 1717. Many volumes
are wanting, as appears by the series of numbers; but there still
remain eight in folio, and twenty-four in quarto and octavo. The
collection had fallen into the hands of a second-hand bookseller,
who, knowing me by having sold me some books, brought it to me. My
uncle, it seems, had left it behind him on his departure for America,
about fifty years ago. I found various notes of his writing in the
margins. His grandson, Samuel, is now living at Boston.
Our humble family had early embraced the Reformation. They remained
faithfully attached during the reign of Queen Mary, when they were
in danger of being molested on account of their zeal against popery.
They had an English bible, and, to conceal it the more securely,
they conceived the project of fastening it, open, with pack-threads
across the leaves, on the inside of the lid of the close-stool. When
my great-grandfather wished to read to his family, he reversed the
lid of the close-stool upon his knees, and passed the leaves from one
side to the other, which were held down on each by the pack-thread.
One of the children was stationed at the door, to give notice if
he saw the proctor (an officer of the spiritual court) make his
appearance: in that case, the lid was restored to its place, with the
Bible concealed under it as before. I had this anecdote from my uncle
Benjamin.
The whole family preserved its attachment to the Church of England
till towards the close of the reign of Charles II. when certain
ministers, who had been ejected as nonconformists, having held
conventicles in Northamptonshire, they were joined by Benjamin and
Josias, who adhered to them ever after. The rest of the family
continued in the episcopal church.
My father, Josias, married early in life. He went, with his wife and
three children, to New England, about the year 1682. Conventicles
being at that time prohibited by law, and frequently disturbed,
some considerable persons of his acquaintance determined to go
to America, where they hoped to enjoy the free exercise of their
religion, and my father was prevailed on to accompany them.
My father had also by the same wife, four children born in America,
and ten others by a second wife, making in all seventeen. I remember
to have seen thirteen seated together at his table, who all arrived
to years of maturity, and were married. I was the last of the sons,
and the youngest child, excepting two daughters. I was born at
Boston in New England. My mother, the second wife, was Abiah Folger,
daughter of Peter Folger, one of the first colonists of New England,
of whom Cotton Mather makes honourable mention, in his Ecclesiastical
History of that province, as "_a pious and learned Englishman_," if
I rightly recollect his expressions. I have been told of his having
written a variety of little pieces; but there appears to be only one
in print, which I met with many years ago. It was published in the
year 1675, and is in familiar verse, agreeably to the taste of the
times and the country. The author addresses himself to the governors
for the time being, speaks for liberty of conscience, and in favour
of the anabaptists, quakers, and other sectaries, who had suffered
persecution. To this persecution he attributes the war with the
natives, and other calamities which afflicted the country, regarding
them as the judgments of God in punishment of so odious an offence,
and he exhorts the government to the repeal of laws so contrary to
charity. The poem appeared to be written with a manly freedom and a
pleasing simplicity. I recollect the six concluding lines, though
I have forgotten the order of words of the two first; the sense of
which was, that his censures were dictated by benevolence, and that,
of consequence, he wished to be known as the author; because, said
he, I hate from my very soul dissimulation:
From Sherburn,[2] where I dwell,
I therefore put my name,
Your friend, who means you well,