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