Jane Franklin Mecom

Early life and family Mecom's father had seven children from a previous marriage. Mecom was the youngest of ten children to Josiah Franklin's second wife, Abiah Folger. Jane Franklin was born at Blue Ball house on Union Street in Boston, Massachusetts on March 27, 1712. Franklin first wrote a letter to Mecom in 1726, and their correspondence continued until Franklin's death in 1790. Mark Van Doren was the first biographer of Jane Franklin and his Jane Mecom: Franklin's Favorite Sister (1950) draws on years of correspondence between Jane and Benjamin Franklin. Jill Lepore theorizes that the young girl could have had an affair and become pregnant out of wedlock from it, and the marriage was an attempt to save the family dignity. If there had been a child she miscarried it; her first son, Josiah Mecom, was born two years later and she named him for her father. He died at age 11 months.

Jane and Edward Mecom had twelve children: Josiah Mecom I, Edward "Neddy" Mecom, Benjamin "Benny" Mecom, Ebenezer Mecom, Sarah "Sally" Mecom, Peter Franklin Mecom, John Mecom, Josiah Mecom, Jane "Jenny" Mecom, James Mecom, Mary "Polly" Mecom, and Abiah Mecom.

One son, Benjamin, disappeared during the Battle of Trenton. Two of her sons struggled with mental illness. Mecom made efforts to keep her children out of debtors' prison, the almshouse, and asylums. Several of them succumbed to an illness now believed to be tuberculosis. Only one of Mecom's children outlived her, her daughter, Jane Collas. Her husband, Edward Mecom died in 1765 after 38 years of marriage, leaving no will, and leaving Mecom in debt. In November 1766, she and her daughters Jenny and Polly established a small shop to sell caps and bonnets that they created using materials sent from London by a friend of Benjamin Franklin. Her skills in needlework and her brother's fame kept her products circulating among wealthier people.

It was Mecom's homemade soaps that Franklin used to woo the French, presenting the image of a humbled, "homespun" American. There is no knowledge of where she is buried.

She gave the majority of her papers to her granddaughter, Jenny Mecom. Jared Sparks collected and published the correspondence between Mecom and Franklin, although he heavily edited Mecom's letters to change her original spellings.