Abiah Folger

Abiah Folger Franklin (August 15, 1667 – May 18, 1752) was the mother of Benjamin Franklin, a Founding Father of the United States. Biography Abiah Folger was born on Madaket Road in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on August 15, 1667, to Peter Folger, a miller and schoolteacher, and his wife, Mary Morrell Folger, a former indentured servant. Her father Peter Folger was descended from reformist Flemish Protestants who had fled to England in the sixteenth century, and been among the first to flee to Massachusetts for religious freedom, in 1635, when King Charles I of England began persecuting Puritans. Later, her father Peter became a convert to Baptist Christianity, and Abhiah was raised as a Baptist. Abiah was the youngest of Peter and Mary Folger's ten children. At age 21 and unmarried, Abiah moved from Nantucket to Boston to live with an older sister and her husband, who were members of the Puritan South Church. Folger married Boston candle-maker and widower Josiah Franklin and they had 10 children. She raised her children with the Presbyterian religious tradition. Abiah and Josiah's children included John (born 1690), Peter (1692), Mary (1694), James (1696), Sarah (1699), Ebenezer (1701), a son who died young (1703), Benjamin (1706), Lydia (1708), and Jane (1712). Abiah Folger Franklin was an early supporter of her son Benjamin's career but not actively involved in politics. She disapproved of her son's membership to Freemasonry. Benjamin Franklin described his mother as “a discreet and virtuous woman” with “an excellent constitution."