Book of Ages (61 page)

  
1.
  “Doctor George Weed,” advertisement,
Pennsylvania Packet,
August 1, 1774. Weed was the apothecary of the
Pennsylvania Hospital. He ran an apothecary shop in Philadelphia. His advertisement contains this postscript: “N.B. He hath to sell, at the same place, fine Crown Soap, for the washing of fine linens, muslins, laces, silks, shirts, calicoes, and for the use of Barbers. The above Soap made and also sold by Benjamin Mecom, of Burlington, in West New Jersey.—Some that have made use of the above Soap, think it is the best they ever made use of for washing or shaving.”

  
2.
  JFM to BF, November 3–21, 1774.

  
3.
  BF to WF, London, September 7, 1774.

  
4.
  On
Richard Bache sending the express to Amboy, see Richard Bache to BF, Philadelphia, December 24, 1774. William Franklin to BF, Philadelphia, December 24, 1774.

  
5.
  WF to BF, Philadelphia, December 24, 1774.

  
6.
  WF, address to the New Jersey General Assembly, January 13, 1775, in
Votes and Proceedings of the General Assembly of the Colony of New Jersey
(Burlington, 1775), 5–7.

  
7.
  BF to WF, on board the Pennsylvania Packet bound to Philadelphia, March 22, 1775.

  
8.
  
Patience Wright to John Dickinson, London, April 6, 1775, in Sellers,
Patience Wright,
81–82.

  
9.
  Fischer,
Paul Revere’s Ride,
76–77.

10.
  Samuel Lane Boardman, ed.,
Peter Edes: A Biography, with His Diary
(Bangor, 1901), 8. Silver, “Benjamin Edes,” 262.

11.
  Gross,
Minutemen and Their World,
chapter 5.

12.
  JFM to BF, May 14, 1775.

13.
  Andrew Eliot to Thomas Hollis, April 25, 1775; Andrew Eliot to John Eliot, May 4, 1775,
Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society
16 (1878): 281–82.

14.
  Jonathan Williams Sr. to BF, Worcester, June 19, 1775.

15.
  Henry Pelham to John Singleton, May 16, 1775, in
Letters of Copley and Pelham,
318. Boardman,
Peter Edes,
99.

16.
  JFM to BF, May 14, 1775, and July 14, 1775.

17.
  As CRG explained to BF, JFM was a mother “whose Heart is So Divided between So good a Brother and a Distrest Daughter.” But, as usual, she “keeps all to her Self.” CRG to BF, Warwick, October 1, 1776.

18.
  JFM to BF, May 14, 1775, and July 14, 1775.

19.
  Ibid.

20.
  JFM to BF, July 14, 1775.

  
1.
  BF to WF: “Journal of Negotiations in London,” on board the Pennsylvania Packet bound to Philadelphia, March 22, 1775,
PBF,
21:540–99.

  
2.
  JFM to BF, July 14, 1775; CRG to JFM, March 12, 1776; JFM to CRG, November 24, 1775.

  
3.
  Roelker,
BF and CRG,
49.

  
4.
  JFM to BF, May 14, 1775; CRG to BF, May 14, 1775.

  
5.
  For the letter, see BF to JFM, May 26, 1775; on Jane finally receiving it, see JFM to BF, July 14, 1775. A letter Franklin had mailed to Jane from London on February 20 ended up being returned to him in Philadelphia after stopping at New England. “Let me know however if I can render you any Service; and in what way. You know it will give me Pleasure. I hear the Cousin Williams is at last got out with his Family: I shall be glad to hear from them, and would write if I knew where they were. I receiv’d the other Day here, a Letter I wrote to you from London the 20th of February. It has been to New England, and I suppose your being not found there, occasion’d its being forwarded to me.” BF to JFM, June 17, 1775.

  
6.
  BF to JFM, May 26, 1775.

  
7.
  Ibid.

  
8.
  JFM to BF, July 14, 1775.

  
9.
  BF to JFM, May 26, 1775.

10.
  Benjamin H. Irvin, “Benjamin Franklin’s ‘
Enriching Virtues
,’ ”
Common-place
6 (April 2006), and Benjamin H. Irvin,
Clothed in Robes of Sovereignty: The Continental
Congress and the People Out of Doors
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

11.
  BF to JFM, June 17, 1775.

12.
  BF to CRG, Philadelphia, June 17, 1775.

13.
  National Archives, Microfilm Publication M804, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land-Warrant Application Files, Simeon Furbush, Pension W17895. Mass. Arch., Muster Rolls of the Revolutionary War (SC1/Series 57X), vol. 35, p. 44, Captain Charles Furbush’s Company, receipt for advance pay, Cambridge, June 30, 1775, “Rec.d of Colo. Asa Whetcomb Pay Master for the Army at Cambridge by the hand of Capt. Furbush our months advanec pay as ordred [
sic
] by Congress” vol. 14, p. 95.

14.
  Jane received the news of Josiah’s
death in Philadelphia. She told Caty, “I have heard of the
Death of Poor Josiah since I came hear but by what means I am not Informed. God grant I may make a proper Use of all His Dealings with me.” JFM to CRG, Philadelphia, November 24, 1775.

15.
  Josiah Mecom died sometime between August and November 1775. On October 29, 1775, a search for him seems to have been under way. On that day, Colonial William Henshaw, who commanded a regiment of
minutemen, wrote in his orderly book from Cambridge: “Josiah Mecom Soldier in this Army but in what Regiment or Company is not known may hear of some thing much to his Advantage by applying in Person to the Adjutant General at Head Quarters.” “The Orderly Books of Colonial William Henshaw,”
Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society
57 (1947): 38. By November 21, 1775, he was not listed on a muster for his company: Mass. Arch., Muster Rolls of the Revolutionary War (SC1/Series 57X), vol. 56, file 19, p. 27, Return of men in Captain Charles Furbush’s Company for bounty coats or equivalent in money, Cambridge, November 21, 1775.

16.
  Howard Peckham,
The Toll of Independence: Engagements and Battle Casualties of the American Revolution
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975).

17.
  JFM to CRG, November 24, 1775.

18.
  Ibid.

19.
  Jonathan Williams Sr. to BF, Worcester, June 19, 1775. In August, Jane and Caty went to Worcester to visit the Williamses and other refugees. Roelker,
BF and CRG,
57.

20.
  JFM to BF, July 14, 1775.

21.
  CRG to BF, July 14, 1775.

22.
  Stewart, “Intercourse,” 164.

23.
  BF to JFM, August 2, 1775.

24.
  BF to JFM, October 16, 1775.

25.
  JFM to CRG, November 24, 1775.

26.
  Skemp,
William Temple,
186–89.

  
1.
  Thomas Paine,
The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine,
ed. Philip Foner (New York: Citadel, 1945), 1:3, 17.

  
2.
  John Adams,
Papers of John Adams,
ed. Robert J. Taylor (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977), 4:37, 41, 53, 29.

  
3.
  Nelson,
Thomas Paine,
49.

  
4.
  
Thomas Paine, “An Occasional Letter on the Female Sex,” in
The Writings of Thomas Paine,
ed. Moncure David Conway (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1894), 1:59–64 (quote on p. 59), and in Foner,
The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine,
2:34, 36.

  
5.
  Thomas Paine,
“Common Sense,
” in Conway,
The Writings of Paine,
1:84, 92, 85, and Foner,
The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine,
1:17, 24, 18.

  
6.
  Thomas Paine, “To the Public on Mr. Deane’s Affair,” in Foner,
The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine,
2:111.

  
7.
  Van Doren,
Jane Mecom,
128.

  
8.
  JFM to CRG, May 8, 1776.

  
9.
  Abigail Adams to John Adams, March 31, 1776,
Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife Abigail Adams, During the Revolution
(Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1875), 149–50.

10.
  John Adams to Abigail Adams, April 14, 1776,
Familiar Letters,
155.

11.
  Pauline Maier,
American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence
(New York: Knopf, 1997), 100–103.

12.
  Ibid., 136.

13.
  John Lawrence and William Smith to BF, Burlington, NJ, July 19, 1776.

14.
  BF,
Some Account of the Pennsylvania Hospital
(Philadelphia: B. Franklin and D. Hall, 1754), 5. See also
PBF,
5:283–330 (range), 287 (quote). On the early history of the hospital, see William H. Williams,
America’s First Hospital: The Pennsylvania Hospital, 1751–1841
(Wayne, PA: Haverford House, 1976); on the crisis during the war, see chapter 4. On the rising numbers of lunatics, see pp. 81–82. See also Michael Meranze,
Laboratories of Virtue: Punishment, Revolution, and Authority in Philadelphia, 1760–1835
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996).

15.
  Van Doren,
Jane Mecom,
130.

16.
  Jane remained in touch with her nephew’s wife, Elizabeth. See, e.g.,
Elizabeth Downes Franklin to WTF, in Philadelphia, July 16, 1776 (“Pray present my Duty to my Father, & Aunt Mecom”), Franklin Papers, Film 54–58 Frame 164, APS.

17.
  At one point, he was held in solitary confinement for 250 consecutive days. Skemp,
William Franklin,
202–8; and on the orders to deny him pen and paper, while confined in Connecticut, see p. 221.

  
1.
  On Franklin in France, see, especially, Stacy Schiff,
A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America
(New York: Holt, 2005).

  
2.
  BF to JFM, November 4, 1787.

  
3.
  In August, she asked Temple Franklin to visit a friend of hers, to see if she knew what had become of Catherine Oakey Mecom, the widow of Jane’s son John, who had married a British office named Turner. “If it is not too much Trouble,” Temple reported to his grandfather, “let Aunt Mecome know, that according to her desire I waited on Mrs. Van Voredice, who being indisposed I had not the pleasure of seeing, but I saw her Son, who told me that last they heard of Mrs. Turner and her husband, was, that they were both in
London and that he was to have a Commission in the Guards.” JFM to Richard Bache, April 11, 1783.

  
4.
  WTF to BF, Philadelphia, August 17, 1776.

  
5.
  
JFM to BF, December 15, 1776.
PBF
provides December 16 for this letter.

  
6.
  JFM to BF, February 14 [–27], 1779.

  
7.
  JFM to BF, August 15, 1778.

  
8.
  JFM to BF, August 18, 1777.

  
9.
  Skemp,
William Franklin,
chapter 12.

10.
  CRG to BF, Warwick, January 13, 1776.

11.
  JFM to BF, August 18, 1777. It is in this letter that she wrote, “I have had some children that seemed to be doing well till they were taken off by Death.”

12.
  CRG to JFM, February 20, 1776.

13.
  CRG to JFM, March 12, 1776.

14.
  CRG to JFM, June 21, 1776.

15.
  CRG to JFM, June 21, 1776. Caty hinted at a marriage for Jenny Flagg in a letter to BF on July 3, 1776, from Warwick: “I dont know but think Jenny is like to get one of our best Matches you are So good a friend to Matrimony that you will be Glad to hear of it.” Jane at some point during the war met Nathanael Greene; in 1778, she passed along her respects to him, in the only surviving letter from
Elihu Greene to Nathanael Greene, Coventry,
Rhode Island, April 12, 1778, in Richard K. Showman, ed.,
The Papers of General Nathanael Greene
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 2:337. The editors of Nathanael Greene’s papers speculate that he burned his correspondence with Elihu Greene, which contained “family secrets” (2:337n1).

16.
  Nathanael Greene to Elihu Greene, Prospect Hill, Massachusetts, January 28, 1776, in
Papers of General Nathanael Greene,
1:187. This was at the beginning of Elihu Greene and Jenny Flagg’s courtship.

17.
  BF to CRG, Paris, February 28, 1778.

18.
  JFM to BF, May 5, 1778.

19.
  JFM to Jane Mecom Collas, April 1778. (Note that this letter has been corrected and the original is missing.) According to Van Doren (
Letters,
174), Elihu Greene and his brothers had a forge in Coventry, Rhode Island. Jane Mecom Collas had written JFM about Jenny Flagg Greene and
Josiah Flagg, and JFM responded, “You mistook me about the word Genteel; what you wrote on that head was that Jenny ought to take her brother and put him in a way to get a genteel living. Now I thought it would be a hard injunction on him, her husband, who was obliged to do the meanest drudgery himself, by reason help is not to be had.”

20.
  JFM to BF, May 5, 1778.

21.
  JFM to Jane Mecom Collas, May 16, 1778.

22.
  JFM to Sarah Franklin Bache, [October 1780].

23.
  JFM to BF, August 15, 1778.

24.
  Ibid.

25.
  Jane was either present at his deathbed or received an account of his passing from someone who was. She wrote BF in the February 14[–27], 1779, letter, “His mouth was opened Just before His Death to comit himself to the mercy of God & wish a blesing on those about him & sunk in to Eternity without a Groan.” See also Jonathan Williams Sr. to BF, Boston, July 29, 1779.

26.
  Jonathan Williams Sr. to BF, Boston, August 8, 1779.

27.
  BF to Jonathan Williams Sr., Passy, October 25, 1779.

28.
  
JFM to BF, February 14, 1779.

29.
  Ibid.

30.
  Jonathan Williams Sr. to BF, Boston, July 29, 1779.

31.
  BF to JFM, October 5, 1777.

32.
  BF to JFM, October 25, 1779.