Mary Morrell Folger
Mary Morrell Folger | |
---|---|
Born | Mary Morrell (Morrel/Morrill/Morrills/Morill) Circa 1620 [citation needed] |
Died | 1704 |
Known for | Grandmother of Benjamin Franklin and being noted in Herman Melville's fictional Moby-Dick |
Spouse | Peter Folger |
Children | Nine, including Abiah, wife of Josiah Franklin |
Relatives | Grandson, Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, Great-Grandson, Founder of Cornell University Ezra Cornell |
Mary Folger (née Morrell (Morrel/Morrill/Morrills/Morill); c. 1620–1704) was the maternal grandmother of Benjamin Franklin, a Founding Father of the United States.[1] In Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick, she was cited as an ancestor of the Folger whalers.
Personal life
Folger immigrated to
She married Peter Folger in 1644.
They had nine children, eight of whom were born on Martha's Vineyard.[6] In 1663, they moved to Nantucket,[2] where they were among the few people of European heritage.[3] Their youngest daughter, Abiah (1667–1752) was born there. She married Boston candle-maker Josiah Franklin and they had a son, Benjamin Franklin.[1][7]
Her husband died in 1690,[2] and she died in 1704.[3]
Legacy
Folger was referenced in defense of the whaling industry in Herman Melville's fictional Moby-Dick.[8] In it, Melville sets up a series of objections to that industry, one of which is "No good blood in their veins?" The response is:
They have something better than royal blood there. The grandmother of Benjamin Franklin was Mary Morrel; afterwards, by marriage, Mary Folger, one of the old settlers of Nantucket, and the ancestress to a long line of Folgers and harpooneers—all kith and kin to noble Benjamin—this day darting the barbed iron from one side of the world to the other.
— Herman Melville, Moby-Dick[8]
References
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4653-4861-6.
- ^ a b c d e Robert Alexander Douglas-Lithgow (1914). Nantucket: A History. G.P. Putnam's Sons. pp. 63–64.
- ^ a b c d Jared Sparks (1844). The Works of Benjamin Franklin: Containing Several Political and Historical Tracts Not Included in Any Former Edition, and Many Letters, Official and Private, Not Hitherto Published; with Notes and a Life of the Author. C. Tappan. p. 543.
- ^ a b Eva Celine Grear Folger (1911). The Glacier's Gift: With Fourteen Illustrations. Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Company. p. 20.
- ^ Memorial Biographies of the New England Historic Genealogical Society. The Society. 1882. p. 321.
- ^ Robert Alexander Douglas-Lithgow (1914). Nantucket: A History. G.P. Putnam's Sons. pp. 225–226.
- ^ Robert Alexander Douglas-Lithgow (1914). Nantucket: A History. G.P. Putnam's Sons. p. 366.
- ^ a b Herman Melville (1892). Moby Dick. St. Botolph Society. p. 107.