Book of Ages (63 page)

  
1.
  JFM to BF, October 1, 1785.

  
2.
  JFM to BF, January 6, 1786.

  
3.
  BF to JFM, January 24, 1786.

  
4.
  BF to JFM, September 21, 1786. For more on BF’s renovation project, see BF to JFM, May 30, 1787.

  
5.
  JFM to BF, August 16, 1787.

  
6.
  BF to JFM, October 27, 1785.

  
7.
  JFM to BF, November 30, 1785.

  
8.
  BF to JFM, December 3, 1786. BF had written to Anthony Somersby Stickney’s father, Anthony Stickney (Dorcas Davenport’s husband), from Philadelphia on June 16, 1764, wishing him congratulations on the birth of “another Daughter.”

  
9.
  JFM to BF, January 6, 1787. Sparks followed the Stickney story, too. See Anonymous to Captain Anthony Stickney, Newbury Port, Massachusetts, April 29, 1838, in Franklin, Mss. Papers, p. 106, Sparks Papers, MS Sparks 18.

10.
  JFM to BF, March 9, 1787.

11.
  BF to JFM, October 27, 1785.

12.
  BF to Jonathan Williams Jr., Philadelphia, February 16, 1786.

13.
  Jonathan Williams Jr. to BF, Boston, December 26, 1785.

14.
  JFM to BF, November 30, 1785; see also JFM to BF, December 29, 1785.

  
1.
  BF to JFM, January 1, 1786.

  
2.
  JFM to BF, January 6, 1786.

  
3.
  BF, “The Petition of the Letter Z,”
PBF,
28:517–21. Franklin did not publicly admit being the author of this essay, which is a rebuff to the South Carolinian
Ralph Izard, who, as American commissioner to Tuscany, had known Franklin in France but, after returning to the United States in 1780, accused Franklin of malfeasance for trying to promote the interests of Jonathan Williams Jr. (Jane thought of Izard as an “Infamous Fellow,” warning her brother, in 1780 from Rhode Island, that “Izeard was wery Laboreous at Newport to make People beleve you had done something criminal in mony maters” and had mentioned “that you had a Nephue there you wanted to Asist in makeing a Fortune.”) Jane remarked on Izard in JFM to
Sarah Franklin Bache, October 1780, and detailed her knowledge of him in JFM to BF, December 29, 1780.
PBF
gives December 24.

  
4.
  BF to JFM, January 24, 1786. BF sent the book he promised on April 25. See BF to JFM, April 25, 1786.

  
5.
  BF to JFM, April 25, 1786.

  
6.
  BF, “A Scheme for a New Alphabet,” in
Political, Miscellaneous, and Philosophical Pieces
(London, 1779), 467–79.

  
7.
  Franklin’s scheme was recalled to his mind, early in 1786, when he attended a lecture in Philadelphia delivered by
Noah Webster. Webster to BF, New York, May 24, 1786. The two men corresponded at some length in 1786.

  
8.
  JFM to BF, [between May and July 1786?].

  
9.
  JFM to BF, May 29, 1786.

10.
  BF to JFM, July 4, 1786.

11.
  JFM to BF, July 21, 1786.

12.
  Josiah Flagg to BF, Petersburg, Virginia, January 24, 1786, and February 18, 1786. Josiah Flagg’s account in Jane Franklin Mecom, “Book of Ages.”

13.
  E.g., “I cant say when I shall be in town but e’re Long I hope.” Josiah Flagg to Jane Mecom (that is, not Benjamin Franklin’s sister but Benjamin Mecom’s daughter), August 23, 1783.

14.
  Josiah Flagg to Jane Mecom, March 14, 1786.

15.
  Josiah Flagg to JFM, Philadelphia, April 17, 1786. Josiah Flagg to BF, Petersburg, January 24, 1786.

16.
  BF to Josiah Flagg, Philadelphia, February 9, 1786. And see Josiah Flagg’s reply, Josiah Flagg to BF, Petersburg, February 18, 1786.

17.
  Jonathan Williams Jr. visited his grandaunt in February 1786 and reported to Franklin: “I thought it best to get my Information about Aunt Mecom from its proper source, and the affectionate Terms on which we are justifys my Frankness. She lives with great apparent Comfort and Neatness, and seems very happy and contented except when she feels a Dispair of seeing you again: If you once came together I am sure you would never part while living” (Jonathan Williams Jr. to BF, Boston, February 26, 1786). In April, Jane and Jonathan Williams Jr. inspected the soap they had made together during the winter, puzzling over its brittleness. “Aunt Mecom having spent the Day with us we have reconsidered the Cause of the Soaps appearing so brittle,” Williams reported to Franklin on April 25, a letter in which he offered a full report on the process of making soap. On April 9, BF had written Jonathan Williams Jr. from Philadelphia, “As you are desirous of perfecting yourself in the Crown-soap-making Art, I give you the Opportunity of seeing by the enclos’d what has happened to that lately sent me, at the same time saving for my Sister a little Postage.” When Franklin offered to pay Jane for the soap, she was hurt. “My Dear good Gentileman how could you mention my Drawing on you for the cost of a Litle Soap when all I Injoy is of yr Bounty,” she wrote. “I could not help crying” (JFM to BF, April 22, 1786).

18.
  JFM to BF, February 21, 1786.

19.
  Josiah Flagg to JFM, August 18, 1786, Houghton Library, Harvard.

20.
  JFM to BF, May 3, 1786.

21.
  “I was Candid with him in telling of my indigent Circumstances,” Flagg explained,
“but I never told him I spun out three Years under the patronage of St Crispin and I humbly beg you’d omit that in your Letter to him.” Josiah Flagg to JFM, Philadelphia, April 17, 1786. JFM to BF, May 3, 1786.

22.
  And Jane sent Flagg an apology directly. Flagg was hurt and apparently wrote Jane a letter to this effect. Jane responded, “I have recd yr Long leter & read it many times & never without Tears, by which you may see that I am not without Affectionat feelings wards You … hope what I wrot to you has not been of any Reale Prejudice to you.” JFM to Josiah Flagg, July 21, 1786.

23.
  JFM to BF, May 3, 1786. JFM to BF, [between May and June 1786]. Flagg used crutches from the age of five. Whether he was lame or whether he had had a leg amputated is unclear.

24.
  BF to JFM, June 3, 1786; JFM to BF, July 21, 1786.

25.
  BF to JFM, July 4, 1786. On the early celebration of the
Fourth of July, see David Waldstreicher,
In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776–1820
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997).

26.
  See John Lathrop to
Richard Price, Boston, March 1786, in Richard Price Papers, APS. In the inventory of Lathrop’s library, taken at his death, only “Price’s Sermons” are listed.
Catalogue of rare, curious and valuable books, theological, classical, philosophical and literary [microform] to be sold by public auction at Francis Amory’s auction room … February 22, 1816 being the library of the late reverend John Lathrop
(Boston, 1816), 3.

27.
  JFM to Josiah Flagg, July 21, 1786. I am fairly certain this is a misreading and that “first” must be “fourth.”

28.
  Richard Price,
Four Dissertations on Providence,
2nd ed., with additions (London, 1768), 5–6.

29.
  Price,
Four Dissertations,
144, 145, 147, 150, 151.

30.
  Price knew of Jane’s existence, from Franklin’s earlier letter, and when
Benjamin Rush wrote to Price to tell him of Franklin’s death, he mentioned, in summarizing Franklin’s will, “a legacy to his sister in Boston,” but I can find no evidence of an exchange between them. Benjamin Rush to Richard Price, Philadelphia, April 24, 1790, in Richard Price,
Letters to and from Richard Price, 1767–1790
(Cambridge, 1903), 111.

31.
  On Price and slavery, see Richard Price, “Of the Negro Trade and Slavery” in
Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution
(London: Powars and Willis, 1784), 68–69. Jane also owned a book written by the British abolitionist Granville Sharp.

32.
  JFM to BF, July 21, 1786.

  
1.
  BF to Whom It May Concern, September 4, 1786, NEHGS.

  
2.
  JFM to BF, October 12, 1786. She had written to BF on August 25, before Josiah left Philadelphia, “I will accept your thanks for the soap and thank you for recveing so kindly, it has not altogether Pleasd me yet. that Art I all ways meant to Instruct Josiah Flagg in when he shuld be in a Sittuation to Observe it, I have keept a Recipe by me for that Porpose, & now He is with you you will in some discorce with him some time if you think on it Inform him somthing about the Nature of the working
of such Ingredents togather which may help him more Easely to comprehend the Instructions he may after Recive, & it may be of some service to him some time or other.”

  
3.
  BF to JFM, September 21, 1786.

  
4.
  Josiah Flagg to Jane Mecom (that is, Benjamin Mecom’s daughter), Petersburg, March 14, 1786, NEHGS.

  
5.
  Josiah Flagg to BF, Boston, September 12, 1786.

  
6.
  JFM to BF, October 12, 1786.

  
7.
  “Fine Crown Soap,”
New Jersey Journal,
August 29, 1787. This ad ran several times, in August and September of that year. She used, in her advertisement, almost the same language Benjamin Mecom had used when he sold the soap he described as “fine Crown Soap, for the washing of fine linens, muslins, laces, silks, shirts, calicoes, and for the use of Barbers.” “Doctor George Weed,” advertisement,
Pennsylvania Packet,
August 1, 1774.

  
8.
  “Fine Crown Soap,” advertisement,
New York Packet,
August 11, 1789.

  
9.
  Communication between JFM and Elizabeth Ross Mecom seems to have been somehow strained. Jane sent Jenny’s pocketbook, a gift
for Elizabeth Ross Mecom, to Sarah Franklin Bache, writing, “My Dear Niece Will Excuse my giving her the care of the Inclosed it is no Easy mater to Convey even a leter to my Daughter or her children & Jenny has workd a Pockett book for her mother which she is desirous should go Saif your Sending them to my Grandaughter Smith will much oblige us.” JFM to Sarah Franklin Bache, May 23, 1787. “My Grandaughter Smith” was another of Benjamin Mecom’s daughters.

10.
  JFM to Sarah Franklin Bache, May 23, 1787.

11.
  JFM to BF, March 9, 1787.

12.
  JFM to BF, December 17, 1786; BF to JFM, November 4, 1787. And on BF providing JFM with wood for the winters, see JFM to BF, November 5, 1786, and BF to JFM, December 3, 1786 (a barrel of flour as well).

13.
  “By the President and the Supreme Executive Council of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, A Proclamation,” March 10, 1787,
PBF,
unpublished.

14.
  JFM to BF, May 22, 1787; JFM to Sarah Franklin Bache, Boston, May 23, 1787.

15.
  Abigail Adams to John Adams, Braintree, March 31, 1776, in
Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife Abigail Adams,
149–50.

16.
  JFM to BF, May 22, 1787.

17.
  BF to JFM, September 20, 1787.

18.
  James Madison,
The Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, Which Framed the Constitution of the United States of America,
ed. Gaillard Hunt and James Brown Scott (New York: Oxford University Press, 1920), 577, 579, 578. And on the Constitution as an artifact, see Lepore,
The Story of America,
72–90.

19.
  Madison’s notes on the Constitutional Convention for September 17, 1787, in
The Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787,
p. 583.

20.
  BF to JFM, September 20, 1787.

21.
  Akhil Reed Amar,
America’s Constitution: A Biography
(New York: Random House, 2005), 8.

22.
  James Madison, “Federalist No. 40: The Powers of the Convention to Form a Mixed Government Examined and Sustained,”
New York Packet,
January 18, 1788.

23.
  
The Complete Anti-Federalist,
ed. Herbert J. Storing, with the assistance of Murray Dry, vol. 1,
What the Anti-Federalists Were For
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 54.

24.
  JFM to BF, November 9, 1787. CRG was visiting JFM.

25.
  BF to JFM, September 20, 1787.

  
1.
  JFM to BF, January 17, 1790.

  
2.
  JFM to BF, January 17, 1790; BF to JFM, December 11, 1787.

  
3.
  JFM to BF, January 8, 1788.

  
4.
  CRG to BF, Boston, November 8, 1787. See also: “we had each of us a feast talking of you.” CRG to BF, Warwick, December 10, 1787.

  
5.
  BF to John Lathrop, Philadelphia, May 31, 1788.

  
6.
  JFM to BF, January 17, 1790. For an account of BF’s writing, see “Introduction,” in BF,
Autobiography,
xiii–xv.

  
7.
  Benjamin Vaughan to BF, Paris, January 31, 1783.

  
8.
  BF to Benjamin Vaughan, Philadelphia, October 24, 1788.

  
9.
  He also left a legacy to her descendants: “To the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of my sister Jane Mecom that may be living at the time of my decease, I give fifty pounds sterling, to be equally divided among them.”

10.
  BF to JFM, May 31, 1788. BF, Will and Codicil, July 17, 1788,
PBF,
unpublished.

11.
  JFM to BF, June 25, 1788.

12.
  BF to JFM, November 26, 1788.

13.
  JFM to BF, September 5, 1788. To this she added a prayer: “O my God I never did Distrust thy Kind Provedence & thou art continuealy conferming me in that Dependance upon Thee.” Jane incurred a sizable debt in taking care of Jenny Mecom: “I was carefull to Live very frugaly & have not ben much straitned till the very Instant her mony came, but I had unavoidably contracted a large Debpt for my Grandaughters Sicknes a year ago which I have not been able to Pay. She was Extreemly sick I had very nearly lost her & it is a valuable Life to me the Docter was Exeding atentive for two months & she Recovered but has never been so strong & hardey since, on this acount & to Indulg my self in a few litle things I will thankfull accept the Forty Dolars as I see no Proble Prospect of Paying this Dept without it & Debpt is a Burden I cannot bare I owe no won Els a Farthing Exept a litle back Rates for my Pue at meteing which I have not been askd for it.” JFM to BF, July 23, 1789. (Lathrop appears to have waived Jane’s pew fee.)

14.
  JFM to BF, April 2, 1789.

15.
  JFM to BF, September 26, 1788.

16.
  JFM to BF, August 29, 1789.

17.
  Anna Letitia Barbauld,
Lessons for Children, From Two to Four Years Old; Lessons for Children of Four Years Old; Lessons for Children, From Four to Five Years Old; Lessons for Children of Five Years Old. All With Alterations, suited to the American climate
(Philadelphia: B. F. Bache, 1788).

18.
  BF to JFM, February 22, 1789; JFM to BF, July 23, 1789.

19.
  JFM to BF, September 26, 1788.

20.
  BF to JFM, August 3, 1789.

21.
  
JFM to BF, August 29, 1789.

22.
  Jane’s account of Keziah’s trial is especially canny and informed. “She was Brought up to Boston to stand tryal, but I think there was no final condemnation at Court, she says they could not find Evedence. they [her prosecutors] say the Evedence was so strong that had they suffered them to come in to court it would have hangd her & so they supresd it not being willing it should Proceed so far.” JFM to BF, August 29, 1789.

23.
  Keziah Folger Coffin’s daughter
Keziah Coffin Fanning recorded her mother’s trials in her diary. See Keziah Coffin Fanning Diary, Kezia Coffin Fanning Papers, 1775–1820, typewritten copy, Folder 4, NHARL. And see also Philbrick,
Away Off Shore,
123–33.

24.
  “I sopose you may have heard couzen Kezia Coffin is gone to Live at Halafax & so did not Send the Pockettbook to my care, there has been a Grate Revolution in that Famely but I hear of her Frequently tho She does not write to me.” JFM to Sarah Franklin Bache, May 23, 1787.

25.
  Its author, Joseph C. Hart, got his account of the Folger family from
Benjamin Franklin Folger, a
Nantucket hermit, whom Hart described as “a walking genealogical tree, whose leaves and branches, so to speak, would unfold the birth, parentage and education of every resident of the island, from the days of the first settlers downwards to the time present.” Joseph C. Hart,
Miriam Coffin; or, The Whale-Fishermen: A Tale,
2 vols. (New York: G. & C. & H. Carvill, 1834). On the tie to
Moby-Dick
, see Leon Howard, “A Predecessor of
Moby-Dick,
”
Modern Language Notes
49 (1934): 310–11. Benjamin Franklin Folger was a descendant of Jane’s maternal grandfather,
Peter Folger. For more on Benjamin Franklin Folger, see Benjamin Franklin Folger (1777–1859), Folder 7, Folger Family Papers, Nantucket Historical Association Research Library. Folger left his papers and books to Nathaniel and Eliza Barney (see Benjamin Franklin Folger, January 3, 1856, Siasconset, in Folder 7, Folger Family Papers). In 1853, William Barney attempted to transcribe the genealogical information Folger kept in his head. See William J. Barney, “Sundry Items Obtained from Benjamin Franklin Folger of Nantucket in Relation to the First Settlers of Nantucket Massachusetts,” 1853, in William J. Barney, Folder 9, Barney Family Papers, 1728–1860, Nantucket Historical Association Research Library. See also Nathaniel Philbrick, “Benjamin Franklin Folger: A Sconset Eccentric and Nantucket’s First Genealogist,” in Betsy Tyler,
Sconset: A History,
ed. Ben Simons (Nantucket: Nantucket Historical Association, 2008), 16–17.

26.
  JFM to BF, August 29, 1789.

27.
  BF to JFM, December 17, 1789.

28.
  BF,
Autobiography,
28.

29.
  JFM to BF, January 17, 1790; February 6, 1790; January 17, 1790.

30.
  
Judith Sargent Murray, “On the Equality of the Sexes,”
Massachusetts Magazine
2 (March 1790): 132–35 and (April 1790): 223–24. Quoted passages from March 1790, 133, 134, 133. On Murray, and especially regarding her extraordinary archiving of her own letters, in what she called her “Repository,” see Sheila L. Skemp,
First Lady of Letters: Judith Sargent Murray and the Struggle for Female Independence
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009). “On the Equality of the Sexes” was a revision of an essay titled “The Sexes” that Murray had written in 1779 (Skemp,
First Lady,
214–17). And on the postwar political critique of
women’s status more broadly, see Norton,
Liberty’s Daughters,
chapter 8.

31.
  Presumably, she did find out for him, because in the papers of Franklin’s executors, payments are made to
Lydia Franklin Scott’s descendants. “Rec’d Nov. 27th 1792 of H. Hill Seventy five pounds 11/172 or Two hundred one dollars 48/100 in full of 8/9th shares of the £50 of a 170 c. Exch. The Legacy of the late Doctor Franklin to the descendants of his Sister Lydia Scott of whom there were nine living at the time of his decease.” Henry Hill, bound account book, Benjamin Franklin Estate Papers, APS.

32.
  BF to JFM, March 24, 1790.

33.
  One to Francis Childs, a printer, on March 30, and one to Thomas Jefferson on April 8.

34.
  Richard Bache to JFM, April 19, 1790.

35.
  JFM to Sarah Franklin Bache, September 6, 1790. This letter is a corrected copy. The original is in private hands.