Nantucket was the home of Benjamin Franklin's mother, Abiah, whose father, Peter Folger, was one of the earliest settlers (1663); of Maria Mitchell, and of Lucretia Mott.
He was the tenth son of Josiah Franklin, and the eighth child and youngest son of ten children borne by Abiah Folger, his father's second wife.
She bore him two children, one a son, Francis Folger, " whom I have seldom since seen equal'd in everything, and whom to this day [thirty-six years after the child's death] I cannot think of without a sigh," who died (1736) when four years old of small-pox, not having been inoculated; the other was Sarah (1744-1808), who married Richard Bache (1737-1811), Franklin's successor in 1776-1782 as postmastergeneral.
Secretary Folger was a man of high character and ability, who had been chief justice of the New York supreme court when placed in control of the treasury department by President Arthur in 1881.
She was descended on her mother's side from Peter Folger, one of the first settlers of Nantucket, and the grandfather of Benjamin Franklin; her father's ancestors, also, were among the first settlers of Nantucket.
