Birthplace of Jane Franklin Mecom (and Benjamin Franklin)

Jane Franklin Mecom (1712-94), Benjamin Franklin’s sister and favorite family correspondent, survived the trials of raising nine children and many grandchildren in eighteenth-century Boston. AfterMecom’s husband died in 1765, she opened a boarding house near the Old State House, where legislators stayed frequently and kept her informed about local and national political issues. At the age of seventy-six she wrote: “I have a good clean House to live in…I go to bed Early lye warm & comfortable Rise Early to a good Fire have my Brakfast directly and Eate it with a good Apetite and then read or Work…we live frugaly Bake all our own Bread…a Friend sitts and chats a litle in the Evening….”