To Benjamin Franklin from Sarah Franklin, 14 October 1765
From Sarah Franklin
ALS: American Philosophical Society
Philad. Oct. th 14. [1765]
Honour’d Sir
I returnd from Burlington last night, were I have been at Mama’s very Particular desire.3 I left my Brother very well. Sister is very Poorly.
Cousin Laycock was found dead in her Bed, Yesterday morning without any Ilness.4 Your Friend Joseph Morris has passed Meeting with Samuel Mickels Daughter:5 She has a fine fortune. Our Neighbour Keples son is married to the greatest Fortune in Pensilvania Miss Groce of Lancaster who they used to Call the Galloon.6 This is all the news I have hear’d. The Subject now is the Stamp act and nothing else is talked of, the Dutch talk of the stompt ack the Negroes of the tamp, in short every body has something to say.
Capt. Ourry7 took a White satin to be dyed for me whatever Colour Mrs. Stevenson should chuse. I must beg of that good Lady to give directions for having it made. I now send the mesures. Nothing was ever more admired than my new Gown.8 The Patrens [patterns] were of great service to the good women who worked for me. I think myself much obliged for [it.]
I am going to ask my Papa for some things that I cant get here, but must beg if I am troublesome he wont send them to me.9 Tis some Gloves both white and morning [mourning] the last to be the [lar]gest. I have sent one that fits me best but that must be a straw’s breadth bigger in the arm, for I never had a pair in my life that [fit] me there. Some lavander from Smyth in Old Bond Street and [some] tooth Powder from Green & Rutter in Ludgate street. Sister1 is to have some of the two latter. I have also a request to make you [from] Cousin Deby,2 to get a Glass like the one inclosed in a Box which Capt. Friend will deliver to you. It belonged to somebody else and she had the misfortune to break it. Mama desired me to tell you She had not seen the Capt. to get a receipt but that she has shiped you some Aples and Cramberys.
There is not a young Lady of my Acquaintance but what has desired to be rememberd to you. I am my dear your very Dutiful Daughter
Sally Franklin
3. Sally had been at Burlington with WF and his wife Elizabeth for some weeks because DF did not want her daughter to hear all the unpleasant things that might be said (presumably about BF) during the election campaign; above, p. 303.
4. Mary Cash (F.2.2; 1694–1765), DF’s first cousin once removed, was the wife of John Leacock (1689–1752).
5. Joseph Morris (1715–1785; above, VIII, 324 n), treasurer of the Library Co., married as his second wife, Nov. 7, 1765, Hannah, daughter of Samuel Mickle (c.1694–1765). Robert C. Moon, The Morris Family of Philadelphia (Phila., 1898), II, 274. The expression “passed Meeting” meant that notice of the couple’s marriage intentions had been read in meeting. The girl’s “fine fortune” in 1765 is in striking contrast to the “Croaking” pessimism about Philadelphia’s economic future her father had tried to pass on to BF in 1728, when the printing firm of Franklin & Meredith was just starting in business. Autobiog. (APS-Yale), p. 116.
6. Henry Keppele, Jr. (1745–1782), married Catharine Gross, only daughter of Michael Gross (1713–1771), a merchant of Lancaster. The young man’s father, Henry (or John Henry) Keppele (1716–1797), lived on the property that was separated by one 33-foot lot from the one the Franklins had just bought from Anthony Syddon. Oswald Seidensticker, Geschichte der Deutschen Gesellshaft von Pennsylvanien (Phila., 1876), pp. 277–9; PMHB, XLIII (1919), 245; above, p. 272. “Galloon” is a kind of narrow, close-woven ribbon or braid, of gold, silver, or silk thread, used to trim apparel, or a trimming of such material. Used attributively, it means one who was gaily dressed. OED.
7. See above, p. 298 n.
8. For the striped gown BF had sent to Sally, see above, p. 210. He seems to have sent the material for the gown (not the finished garment) to be made up in Philadelphia according to the patterns he supplied.
9. BF sent many of the articles asked for here in April 1766, after the repeal of the Stamp Act made it seem proper to send British goods to the colonies again.
1. WF’s wife Elizabeth. It was probably she who named the shops where BF was to procure the lavender and tooth powder.
2. Probably Deborah Croker Dunlap, wife of William Dunlap and DF’s niece.