Part I: Family and Early Years
Twyford, at the Bishop of St. Asaph’s,
1771
Dear Son,
I have always taken pleasure in learning even the smallest anecdotes about my ancestors. You may remember the questions I asked among my remaining relatives when you were with me in England, and the journey I made for that purpose. I imagine you would also like to know about the events of my life, many of which you have not yet heard about. Expecting to enjoy a week of uninterrupted leisure here in the country, I have sat down to write them for you.
I have several other reasons as well. I was born and raised in poverty and obscurity, yet I have risen to affluence and gained some reputation in the world. I have also passed so much of my life with a considerable share of happiness that my descendants may wish to know what means I used which, with God’s blessing, succeeded so well. They may find some of them suited to their own circumstances and therefore worth imitating.
When I have reflected on that happiness, I have sometimes said that, if I were offered the choice, I would have no objection to living the same life over again from the beginning. I would ask only for the advantage authors have in a second edition, of correcting some faults in the first. Besides correcting those faults, I might exchange some unfortunate accidents and events for more favorable ones. But even if that were denied me, I would still accept the offer. Since such a repetition cannot be expected, the next thing most like living one’s life over again seems to be recalling it and making the recollection as lasting as possible by putting it in writing.
In this way, too, I can indulge the tendency, so natural in old men, to talk about themselves and their past actions. I can do it without tiring others who, out of respect for my age, might feel obliged to listen, since anyone may read this or not, as they please. And finally, I may as well confess it, since no one would believe my denial, perhaps I shall considerably gratify my own vanity. Indeed, I have scarcely ever heard or seen the introductory words, “Without vanity I may say,” etc., without some vain remark immediately following them. Most people dislike vanity in others, whatever share they may have themselves. But I treat it kindly wherever I meet it, because I am persuaded that it often produces good for its possessor and for others within that person’s sphere of action. In many cases, therefore, it would not be entirely absurd for a man to thank God for his vanity among the other comforts of life.
Now that I speak of thanking God, I wish to acknowledge with all humility that I owe the happiness of my past life to his kind providence, which led me to the means I used and gave them success. My belief in this leads me to hope, though I must not presume, that the same goodness will continue to be shown toward me, either by prolonging that happiness or by enabling me to bear a fatal reversal, which I may experience as others have. The character of my future fortune is known only to him who has the power to make even our afflictions a blessing to us.
Notes once placed in my hands by one of my uncles, who had the same curiosity about collecting family anecdotes, supplied me with several details about our ancestors. From these notes I learned that the family had lived for three hundred years in the same village, Ecton in Northamptonshire. How much longer they had lived there, he did not know. Perhaps they had been there since the time when Franklin, previously the name of an order of people, was adopted by them as a surname, when people throughout the kingdom began taking surnames.
They owned a freehold of about thirty acres and supplemented it through the blacksmith’s trade, which continued in the family until my uncle’s time. The eldest son was always trained in that trade, a custom that both my uncle and my father followed with their eldest sons.
When I searched the registers at Ecton, I found records of the family’s births, marriages, and burials beginning only in 1555, since no registers had been kept in that parish before then. From those records I learned that I was, for five generations back, the youngest son of the youngest son.
My grandfather Thomas, born in 1598, lived at Ecton until he became too old to continue working. He then went to live with his son John, a dyer at Banbury in Oxfordshire, to whom my father had been apprenticed. My grandfather died there and is buried there. We saw his gravestone in 1758.
His eldest son, Thomas, lived in the house at Ecton and left it, together with the land, to his only child, a daughter. She and her husband, a man named Fisher of Wellingborough, sold it to Mr. Isted, who is now lord of the manor there.
My grandfather had four sons who grew to adulthood: Thomas, John, Benjamin, and Josiah. I will give you as much information as I can about them while I am separated from my papers. If those papers have not been lost during my absence, you will find many more details among them.
Thomas was trained as a blacksmith under his father. But he was talented and was encouraged in learning, as all my brothers were, by Esquire Palmer, then the leading gentleman in the parish. He qualified himself to work as a legal writer, became a prominent man in the county, and was a chief promoter of all public-spirited projects for the county, the town of Northampton, and his own village. We heard many examples of his work. He also attracted the attention and patronage of Lord Halifax.
Thomas died on January 6, 1702, old style, exactly four years to the day before I was born. The account of his life and character that we received from some old people at Ecton struck you, as I remember, as extraordinary because of its similarity to what you knew of mine. “If he had died on the same day you were born,” you said, “one might have thought it was reincarnation.”
John was trained as a dyer, of woolens, I believe.
Benjamin was trained as a silk dyer and served an apprenticeship in London. He was a talented man. I remember him well, for when I was a boy he came to Boston to live with my father and remained in our house for several years. He lived to a great age. His grandson, Samuel Franklin, now lives in Boston.
My uncle left behind two quarto manuscript volumes of his own poetry, consisting of short occasional pieces addressed to friends and relatives. The following piece, which he sent me, is a sample.
[Franklin left a space here for the poem but did not insert it.]
He had developed a shorthand system of his own and taught it to me, but because I never practiced it, I have now forgotten it. I was named after this uncle, who shared a special affection with my father.
He was very devout and regularly attended sermons by the best preachers, which he recorded in his shorthand. He possessed many volumes of them. He also took a great interest in politics, perhaps too great an interest for his position in life.
A collection he had made of all the principal pamphlets concerning public affairs from 1641 to 1717 recently came into my hands in London. Many volumes are missing, as their numbering shows, but eight folio volumes and twenty-four quarto and octavo volumes remain. A dealer in old books found them and brought them to me because he knew me from my occasional purchases. My uncle must have left them here when he went to America more than fifty years ago. Many of his notes appear in the margins.
Our obscure family joined the Reformation early and remained Protestant throughout the reign of Queen Mary. At times they were in danger of punishment because of their zeal against Roman Catholicism. They had obtained an English Bible and, to conceal and protect it, fastened it open with tapes beneath the top of a joint stool. When my great-great-grandfather read it to his family, he turned the stool upside down on his knees and turned the pages beneath the tapes. One of the children stood at the door to warn him if the apparitor, an officer of the church court, approached. If that happened, the stool was set back on its feet, leaving the Bible concealed beneath it as before. I heard this anecdote from my uncle Benjamin.
The family all remained in the Church of England until about the end of Charles II’s reign. Some ministers who had been expelled for nonconformity began holding unauthorized religious meetings in Northamptonshire. Benjamin and Josiah joined them and continued with them for the rest of their lives, while the remainder of the family stayed with the Episcopal Church.
Josiah, my father, married young and took his wife and three children to New England around 1682. Religious meetings outside the established church had been forbidden by law and were frequently disrupted. This led several prominent men of his acquaintance to move to New England, and he was persuaded to accompany them, since they expected to enjoy freedom in practicing their religion there.
He had four more children in New England by his first wife, and ten by his second, making seventeen in all. I remember thirteen of them sitting at his table at one time. All thirteen grew to adulthood and married. I was the youngest son and the third-youngest child, and I was born in Boston, New England.
My mother, his second wife, was Abiah Folger, the daughter of Peter Folger, one of New England’s first settlers. Cotton Mather speaks honorably of him in his church history of that country, Magnalia Christi Americana, calling him “a godly, learned Englishman,” if I remember the words correctly.
I have heard that Peter Folger wrote several short occasional pieces, but only one was printed, and I saw it many years ago. Written in 1675 in the homespun verse used by those people at that time, it was addressed to those then concerned with the government there. It supported liberty of conscience and defended the Baptists, Quakers, and other religious groups that had been persecuted. It attributed the wars with Native peoples and other troubles that had afflicted the country to that persecution, regarding them as judgments from God for so terrible an offense, and urged the repeal of those uncharitable laws.
The whole work seemed to me to have been written with considerable decent plainness and manly freedom. I remember the final six lines, though I have forgotten the first two lines of the stanza. Their meaning was that his criticisms arose from goodwill and that, for this reason, he was willing to be known as the author:
> “Because to be a libeller (says he) > I hate it with my heart; > From Sherburne town, where now I dwell > My name I do put here; > Without offense your real friend, > It is Peter Folgier.”
My older brothers were all apprenticed to different trades. At eight years old I was sent to grammar school because my father intended to devote me, as the tithe of his sons, to the service of the Church. I had learned to read very early, so early that I cannot remember a time when I could not read. This, together with the opinion of all his friends that I would certainly become a good scholar, encouraged him in that purpose. My uncle Benjamin also approved and offered to give me all his shorthand volumes of sermons, which I suppose were meant to provide me with a professional stock, if I would learn his system.
I remained at grammar school for less than a year. During that time, however, I gradually rose from the middle of my class to its head and was then moved into the class above, so that I could advance with it into the third class at the end of the year.
Meanwhile, my father considered the expense of a college education, which he could not easily afford with such a large family, and the poor living that many educated men were afterward able to obtain. I heard him give these reasons to his friends. He changed his original plan, removed me from grammar school, and sent me to a school for writing and arithmetic.
The school was kept by Mr. George Brownell, then a famous teacher who was generally very successful in his profession, especially through mild and encouraging methods. Under him I quickly learned to write a good hand, but I failed at arithmetic and made no progress in it.
At ten years old, I was taken home to assist my father in his business as a tallow chandler and soap boiler. He had not been trained for this work but had taken it up after arriving in New England, when he found that the dyer’s trade, for which there was little demand, would not support his family. I was employed in cutting wicks for candles, filling the dipping mold and the molds for cast candles, tending the shop, running errands, and doing similar work.
I disliked the trade and felt a strong desire to go to sea, but my father firmly opposed it. Still, because we lived near the water, I spent a great deal of time in and around it. I learned early to swim well and to handle boats. When I was in a boat or canoe with other boys, I was usually permitted to take command, especially in difficult situations. On other occasions, too, I was generally a leader among the boys and sometimes led them into trouble. I will mention one example because it shows an early impulse toward public projects, though that impulse was not yet properly directed.
A salt marsh bordered part of the millpond. At high tide, we used to stand at its edge and fish for minnows. Our constant trampling had turned the place into a quagmire. I proposed building a small wharf where we could stand and showed my companions a large pile of stones intended for a new house near the marsh. The stones, I explained, would suit our purpose very well.
That evening, after the workmen had left, I gathered a number of my playmates. Working diligently like so many ants, sometimes with two or three boys carrying a single stone, we moved the entire pile and built our little wharf. The next morning, the workmen were surprised to find the stones missing, but they discovered them in our wharf. An inquiry was made to identify those who had moved them. We were found out and reported, and several of us were punished by our fathers. Though I pleaded that the work was useful, my father convinced me that nothing could be useful unless it was honest.
I think you may like to know something about my father’s appearance and character. He had an excellent physical constitution. He was of medium height but solidly built and very strong. He was talented, could draw fairly well, knew a little music, and had a clear, pleasant voice. When he played psalm tunes on his violin and sang along, as he sometimes did in the evening after the day’s work was over, it was extremely agreeable to hear.
He also had a talent for mechanics and, when the occasion required it, was very skillful with other tradesmen’s tools. But his greatest excellence was his sound understanding and solid judgment in practical matters, both private and public. He was never employed in public affairs, since the large family he had to educate and the narrowness of his circumstances kept him closely occupied with his trade. Yet I clearly remember that leading people often visited him to ask his opinion about affairs of the town or of the church to which he belonged. They showed considerable respect for his judgment and advice.
Private individuals also frequently consulted him when difficulties arose in their affairs, and he was often chosen to arbitrate between opposing parties. At his table he liked, whenever possible, to have some sensible friend or neighbor with whom he could converse. He always took care to introduce some thoughtful or useful subject that might improve the minds of his children.
Through this practice, he directed our attention toward what was good, just, and prudent in the conduct of life. Little or no notice was ever taken of the food on the table, whether it was well or poorly prepared, in season or out of season, of good or bad flavor, or better or worse than some other food of the same kind. I was therefore brought up with such complete inattention to these matters that I became indifferent to whatever food was placed before me. Even now, if someone asks me a few hours after dinner what I ate, I can scarcely remember.
This has been convenient during my travels, when my companions have sometimes been very unhappy because they could not adequately satisfy tastes and appetites that were more refined because they had received better instruction in such matters.
My mother also had an excellent constitution. She nursed all ten of her children herself. I never knew either my father or my mother to suffer any illness except the one from which each died. He died at eighty-nine and she at eighty-five.
They are buried together in Boston, where I placed a marble stone over their grave some years ago with this inscription:
> JOSIAH FRANKLIN, > and > ABIAH, his wife, > lie buried here. > They lived lovingly together in marriage > for fifty-five years. > Without an estate or any profitable employment, > by constant labor and industry, > with God’s blessing, > they comfortably supported a large family > and raised thirteen children > and seven grandchildren > respectably. > From this example, reader, > be encouraged to diligence in your calling, > and do not distrust Providence. > He was a pious and prudent man; > she, a discreet and virtuous woman. > Their youngest son, > out of filial regard for their memory, > places this stone. > J. F., born 1655, died 1744, aged 89. > A. F., born 1667, died 1752, aged 85.
From these wandering digressions, I see that I have grown old. I used to write more methodically. But a person does not dress for private company as for a public ball. Perhaps it is only negligence.
To return to my story, I continued working in my father’s business for two years, until I was twelve. My brother John, who had been trained in that trade, left my father, married, and established himself in Rhode Island. It therefore seemed very likely that I was destined to take his place and become a tallow chandler.
But I continued to dislike the trade, and my father feared that, unless he found a more agreeable one for me, I would run away and go to sea, as his son Josiah had done, to his great distress. He therefore sometimes took me on walks to watch joiners, bricklayers, turners, brassworkers, and other craftsmen at work. He hoped to observe my inclinations and direct me toward some trade on land.
Ever since then, it has given me pleasure to watch good craftsmen handle their tools. It has also been useful to me, because I learned enough from watching them to do small jobs around my own house when a worker could not readily be found. I could also construct little machines for my experiments while the purpose of the experiment was still fresh and vivid in my mind.
At last my father chose the cutler’s trade for me. My uncle Benjamin’s son Samuel, who had been trained in that business in London, was then established in Boston, so I was sent to stay with him for a trial period. But Samuel expected my father to pay a fee for taking me, and my father was displeased by this, so I was brought home again.
From childhood, I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was spent on books. Delighted with The Pilgrim’s Progress, I made my first collection from John Bunyan’s works in separate small volumes. I later sold them so that I could buy R. Burton’s Historical Collections. These were small, inexpensive chapbooks, forty or fifty volumes in all.
My father’s small library consisted mainly of books on controversial theology, and I read most of them. I have often regretted since that, at a time when I had such a thirst for knowledge, more suitable books did not come my way, especially since it had already been decided that I would not become a clergyman.
There was a copy of Plutarch’s Lives, which I read extensively, and I still believe that time was spent to great advantage. There was also a book by Defoe called An Essay on Projects, and another by Dr. Mather called Essays to Do Good. These books may have shaped my way of thinking and influenced some of the principal later events of my life.
My fondness for books finally led my father to make me a printer, though he already had a son, James, in that profession. In 1717, my brother James returned from England with a press and type to establish his business in Boston. I liked printing much better than my father’s trade, but I still longed for the sea.
To prevent the result he feared from that inclination, my father was eager to bind me as an apprentice to my brother. I resisted for a while but was finally persuaded and signed the indentures when I was only twelve years old. I was to serve as an apprentice until I was twenty-one, though I would receive a journeyman’s wages during the final year.
Before long, I made great progress in the business and became useful to my brother. I now had access to better books. By becoming acquainted with booksellers’ apprentices, I was sometimes able to borrow a small book, which I was careful to return quickly and clean. I often sat up in my room reading for most of the night when I had borrowed a book in the evening and needed to return it early the next morning, before it could be missed or wanted.
After some time, a talented tradesman named Mr. Matthew Adams, who owned a good collection of books and often visited our printing house, noticed me. He invited me to use his library and very kindly lent me whatever books I chose to read.
I now became fond of poetry and wrote a few short pieces. My brother thought they might be profitable, so he encouraged me and set me to composing occasional ballads. One was called The Lighthouse Tragedy and told of the drowning of Captain Worthilake and his two daughters. The other was a sailor’s song about the capture of Teach, or Blackbeard, the pirate.
They were wretched things in the style of Grub Street ballads. When they had been printed, my brother sent me around town to sell them. The first sold wonderfully well because the event was recent and had caused a great sensation. This flattered my vanity, but my father discouraged me by ridiculing my work and telling me that writers of verse were generally beggars.
In this way, I escaped becoming a poet, and most probably a very bad one. But prose writing proved extremely useful to me throughout my life and was one of the principal means of my advancement. I will therefore tell you how, in such circumstances, I acquired what little ability I possess in that form.
There was another bookish boy in the town named John Collins, with whom I was very close. We sometimes argued, for we were both extremely fond of debate and eager to refute each other. This argumentative tendency, I should mention, can become a very bad habit. The constant contradiction required to practice it often makes people extremely disagreeable in company. Besides souring and spoiling conversation, it produces resentment and perhaps hostility where friendship may later be needed.
I had acquired the habit by reading my father’s books of religious controversy. I have since observed that people of good sense seldom fall into it, except for lawyers, university men, and people of all kinds who were educated at Edinburgh.
Somehow, Collins and I once began debating whether women should receive an education and whether they were capable of study. He believed that educating them was improper and that they were naturally unsuited to learning. I took the opposite side, perhaps partly for the sake of argument.
He was naturally more eloquent than I was and always had plenty of words ready. Sometimes, I thought, he overcame me more through fluency than through the strength of his reasoning. We parted without settling the question and did not expect to see each other again for some time, so I sat down and put my arguments in writing. I made a clean copy and sent it to him. He answered, and I replied. We had exchanged three or four letters on each side when my father happened to find my papers and read them.
Without entering into the debate itself, he used the opportunity to speak to me about my writing. He observed that although I had the advantage over my opponent in correct spelling and punctuation, which I owed to the printing house, I fell far short of him in elegance of expression, organization, and clarity. He proved this to me with several examples. I recognized the justice of his remarks, became more attentive to the manner of my writing, and resolved to improve it.
Around this time, I found a single volume of The Spectator. It was the third volume, and I had never seen any of the others. I bought it, read it repeatedly, and was delighted with it. I thought the writing was excellent and wished, if possible, to imitate it.
With this purpose, I selected some of its essays and made brief notes of the thought expressed in each sentence. I put the notes aside for a few days. Then, without looking at the book, I tried to recreate the essays, expressing each noted thought at length and as fully as it had originally been expressed, using whatever suitable words occurred to me.
Next, I compared my version of The Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I found that I lacked a sufficient supply of words, or the ability to recall and use them readily. I thought I might already have gained that ability if I had continued writing verse. The continual need for words with the same meaning but different lengths to fit the meter, or with different sounds to make rhymes, would have forced me to search constantly for variety. It would also have helped fix that variety in my mind and made me master of it.
I therefore turned some of the tales into verse and, after enough time had passed for me to forget the prose, turned them back into prose again. Sometimes I also mixed my collections of notes into a confused order. After a few weeks, I tried to arrange them in the best sequence before forming the complete sentences and recreating the essay. This was meant to teach me a method for arranging my thoughts.
When I later compared my work with the original, I discovered many faults and corrected them. But I sometimes had the pleasure of imagining that, in a few small details, I had been fortunate enough to improve the organization or the language. This encouraged me to think that, with time, I might possibly become a tolerable English writer, an achievement I desired intensely.
I found time for these exercises and for reading at night after work, in the morning before work began, or on Sundays. On Sundays, I managed to remain alone in the printing house, avoiding as much as I could the customary attendance at public worship that my father used to require while I was under his care. I still considered that attendance a duty, but it seemed to me that I could not spare the time to practice it.
When I was about sixteen, I happened to find a book by a man named Tryon that recommended a vegetable diet. I decided to adopt it. My brother was still unmarried and did not keep his own household, but boarded himself and his apprentices with another family. My refusal to eat meat caused inconvenience, and I was often scolded for my odd behavior.
I learned Tryon’s methods for preparing some of his dishes, including boiled potatoes or rice, hasty pudding, and a few others. I then proposed that if my brother would give me half the money he paid each week for my board, I would feed myself. He immediately agreed, and I soon discovered that I could save half of what he gave me. This provided an additional fund for buying books.
The arrangement also gave me another advantage. When my brother and the others left the printing house for their meals, I remained there alone. I quickly finished my light meal, which was often no more than a biscuit or slice of bread, a handful of raisins or a tart from the pastry cook, and a glass of water. I then had all the remaining time until their return for study. I made greater progress because of the clearer mind and quicker understanding that usually accompany moderation in eating and drinking.
Around this time, an incident made me ashamed of my ignorance of arithmetic, which I had twice failed to learn at school. I took Cocker’s book of arithmetic and worked through the entire book by myself with great ease. I also read Seller’s and Shermy’s books on navigation and learned the little geometry they contained, though I never advanced far in that science. At about the same time, I read Locke’s On Human Understanding and The Art of Thinking by the Port-Royal authors.
While I was intent on improving my language, I came across an English grammar, Greenwood’s, I think. At the end were two brief sketches of the arts of rhetoric and logic. The section on logic concluded with an example of an argument conducted by the Socratic method. Soon afterward, I obtained Xenophon’s Memorable Things of Socrates, which contains many examples of the same method.
I was charmed by it. I adopted the method, abandoned my abrupt contradictions and dogmatic argumentation, and assumed the manner of a humble questioner and doubter. By then, after reading Shaftesbury and Collins, I had become a genuine doubter about many points of our religious doctrine. I found the Socratic method safest for myself and very perplexing for those against whom I used it.
I therefore took pleasure in the method, practiced it continually, and became very skillful and artful at drawing people, even those with greater knowledge, into concessions whose consequences they did not foresee. I entangled them in difficulties from which they could not free themselves and thus gained victories that neither I nor my cause always deserved.
I continued using this method for several years but gradually gave it up, retaining only the habit of expressing myself with modest uncertainty. Whenever I present a point that may possibly be disputed, I never use words such as certainly or undoubtedly, or any others that give an opinion an air of absolute confidence. Instead, I say that I conceive or understand a thing to be this way or that; that it appears to me, or I should think it this way or that, for such-and-such reasons; that I imagine it to be so; or that it is so, if I am not mistaken.
I believe this habit has been of great advantage to me whenever I have needed to impress my opinions on others and persuade them to adopt measures I was promoting. The chief purposes of conversation are to inform or be informed, and to please or persuade. I wish that well-meaning, sensible people would not reduce their power to do good by using an overconfident and presumptuous manner. Such a manner seldom fails to offend, tends to create opposition, and defeats every purpose for which speech was given to us, namely, giving or receiving information or pleasure.
If you wish to inform others, presenting your opinions in a categorical and dogmatic manner may provoke contradiction and prevent an open-minded hearing. If you wish to gain information and improve yourself through the knowledge of others, yet express yourself as firmly settled in your present opinions, modest and sensible people who dislike arguments will probably leave you undisturbed in possession of your error. By such a manner, you can also seldom hope to make yourself agreeable to your listeners or persuade those whose cooperation you need.
Pope says wisely:
> “Men should be taught as if you taught them not, > And things unknown propos’d as things forgot;”
He further recommends:
> “To speak, tho’ sure, with seeming diffidence.”
He might have joined that line with another that, I think, he placed less properly elsewhere:
> “For want of modesty is want of sense.”
If you ask why I consider its original placement less proper, I must repeat the lines:
> “Immodest words admit of no defense, > For want of modesty is want of sense.”
Now, is not want of sense, when a man is unfortunate enough to lack it, some excuse for his want of modesty? Would the lines not be more accurate in this form?
> “Immodest words admit but this defense, > That want of modesty is want of sense.”
This, however, I would submit to better judgments.
