now lord of the manor1 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. Thomas was bred a smith under his father; but, being ingenious, and encouraged in learning (as all my brothers were) by an Esquire Palmer,3 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, 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.

"6

John was bred a dyer, I believe, of woolens. Benjamin was bred a silk dyer, serving an apprenticeship at London. He was an ingenious man. I remember him well, for

1 Manor: originally the estate of a lord or person of rank, as the manor of Ecton. Lord of the manor: the proprietor of a manor.

2 Ingenious: having natural capacity, intellectual power or genius. 3 Esquire: here, a country gentleman.

'Scrivener: a professional writer; one who draws contracts, deeds, etc. 5 Old style: the old method of reckoning time. The new style was adopted in England in 1752 by dropping an excess of eleven days from the year.

6 Transmigration: the passage of a soul, at death, into another body; for example, into that of a new-born child.

1

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 1 volumes, in manuscript, 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.2 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.

1

Quarto: : a sheet folded so that it makes four leaves - hence a volume of that size.

2" ACROSTIC. [Verses on a name; see initial letters.] "Sent to Benjamin Franklin in New England, July 15th, 1710: "Be to thy parents an obedient son;

Each day let duty constantly be done;
Never give way to sloth, or lust, or pride,
If free you'd be from thousand ills beside;
Above all ills be sure avoid the shelf; *
Man's danger lies in Satan, sin, and self.
In virtue, learning, wisdom, progress make;
Ne'er shrink at suffering for thy Saviour's sake.
"Fraud and all falsehood in thy dealings flee,
Religious always in thy station be;
Adore the Maker of thy inward part,
Now's the accepted time, give him thy heart;
Keep a good conscience, 'tis a constant friend;
Like judge and witness this thy acts attend.
In heart with bended knee, alone, adore

None but the Three in One for evermore."

This uncle Benjamin died in Boston in 1728, leaving one son, Samuel, the only survivor of ten children. This son had an only child, who died in 1775, leaving four daughters. There are now no male descendants of Dr. Frank lin's grandfather living who bear his name." - Bigelow's Franklin.

*The shelf: here, the pawn-shop.

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,1 and twenty-four in quarto and in octavo.2 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 above fifty years since. There are many of his notes in the margin.

3

This obscure family of ours was early in the Reformation, and continued Protestants through the reign of Queen Mary [1553-1558], 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

1 Folio: a sheet folded once, so that it makes two leaves. 2 Octavo: a sheet folded so that it makes eight leaves.

8 The Reformation: the Reformation began in England in the reign of Henry VIII. Protestantism was established by his son, Edward VI. Queen Mary, his successor, endeavored to restore the ancient Catholic religion, and prohibited the Protestant faith, which, however, was finally established by her successor, Queen Elizabeth.

4 Joint-stool: a stool made up of parts fitted into each other.

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 1 for non-conformity holding conventicles 2 in Northamptonshire, Benjamin and Josiah adhered to them, and so continued all their lives: the rest of the family remained with the Episcopal Church.

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 coun. try, and he was prevailed with to accompany them thither, where they expected to enjoy their By the same wife he

mode of religion with freedom. had four children more born there, and by a second wife ten more, in all, seventeen,

of which I remember thir

1 Outed: all of the clergy (about 2000) who would not conform to the Church of England and use the prayer-book were turned out of their pulpits. 2 Conventicles: meetings for worship, especially such as were held by those who had separated from the Church of England.

The penalty for holding or attending a conventicle was imprisonment for the first and second offences, and seven years' transportation for the third. The jails throughout England were full of persons who had been arrested for the crime of thus worshipping God according to the dictates of conscience.

teen 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,1 New England. 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, in his church history of that country, as

a godly, learned Englishman," 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 favor of liberty of conscience, and in behalf of the Baptists, Quakers, and other sectaries 2 that had been under persecution, ascribing the Indian wars and other distresses that had befallen the country to that persecution,3 as so many

1 Born in Boston: he was born Sunday, Jan. 6, 1706 (or Jan. 17, new style). By the records of the Old South Church in Boston, to which his father and mother belonged, it appears that he was baptized the same day. At this time his father occupied a small wooden house on Milk Street, opposite to the Old South Church, where the Boston Post building now stands, but he removed shortly afterward to a house at the southeast corner of Hanover and Union streets. Here he carried on the soap and candle business, hanging out a blue ball- to represent a cake of soap — as a sign.

2 Sectaries: members of a religious sect, especially of one that has separated from an established church, as the Church of England.

3 Persecution: the first settlers of the colony of Massachusetts Bay were men who had not wholly separated from the Episcopal Church of England, as the Pilgrims of Plymouth had. Their object was to establish a religious commonwealth, governed in accordance with their religious principles.

For this reason they would not permit the Baptists, the Friends [Quakers], or any who differed from them, in what they considered essential points of faith, to remain in their colony, though they did not oppose their going elsewhere and establishing colonies of their own. Thus the Baptists went to Rhode Island, and there founded a state granting entire liberty of worship to