The Autobiography of Ben Franklin | Page 3

mentioned happiness of my past life to His
kind providence, which lead me to the means I used and gave them
success. My belief of this induces me to hope, though I must not
presume, that the same goodness will still be exercised toward me, in
continuing that happiness, or enabling me to bear a fatal reverse, which
I may experience as others have done: the complexion of my future
fortune being known to Him only in whose power it is to bless to us
even our afflictions.
The notes one of my uncles (who had the same kind of curiosity in
collecting family anecdotes) once put into my hands, furnished me with
several particulars relating to our ancestors. From these notes I learned
that the family had lived in the same village, Ecton, in
Northamptonshire, for three hundred years, and how much longer he
knew not (perhaps from the time when the name of Franklin, that
before was the name of an order of people, was assumed by them as a
surname when others took surnames all over the kingdom), on a
freehold of about thirty acres, aided by the smith's business, which had
continued in the family till his time, the eldest son being always bred to
that business; a custom which he and my father followed as to their
eldest sons. When I searched the registers at Ecton, I found an account
of their births, marriages and burials from the year 1555 only, there
being no registers kept in that parish at any time preceding. By that
register I perceived that I was the youngest son of the youngest son for
five generations back. My grandfather Thomas, who was born in 1598,
lived at Ecton till he grew too old to follow business longer, when he
went to live with his son John, a dyer at Banbury, in Oxfordshire, with
whom my father served an apprenticeship. There my grandfather died
and lies buried. We saw his gravestone in 1758. His eldest son Thomas
lived in the house at Ecton, and left it with the land to his only child, a
daughter, who, with her husband, one Fisher, of Wellingborough, sold
it to Mr. Isted, now lord of the manor 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,
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."
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 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 volumes, MS., 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. 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, and twenty-four in quarto and in octavo.
A dealer in