From Benjamin Franklin to Jonathan Folger, 29 August 1765
To [Jonathan Folger3]
ALS: The Maria Mitchell Association, Nantucket, Mass.
Augt. 29. 1765
Loving Kinsman
I send to your Care a little Box for our Cousin Keziah Coffin, with a Letter, for her, and another for my Sister.4 I heartily wish you a good Passage home, and to amuse you in a leisure Hour send you a little Book of the English History,5 which I beg you to accept from Your affectionate Cousin
B Franklin
3. This letter hangs in a frame with a notation that it was addressed to Jonathan Folger, great-grandfather of the notable astronomer, Maria Mitchell (1818–1889; DAB) in her maternal line. This Jonathan (1727–1812), not specifically mentioned in the Genealogy (above, I, lv), was the younger son of Jonathan Folger (B.1.7.4), BF’s first cousin, and hence was BF’s first cousin once removed. Little or nothing is known of him personally; he may have been a seafaring man and have called on BF following a voyage to London. Framed with the letter is a piece of silk corduroy said to be a piece of the suit BF wore when presented at the Court of France. Both letter and corduroy were presented to the Maria Mitchell Association by Mr. Joshua Kendall of Cambridge, Mass., a relative of Maria Mitchell.
4. For the letter to Keziah Coffin, see immediately above, and for the one to Jane Mecom, immediately below.
5. It seems impossible to identify the book.