Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin | Page 7

The account we received of his life and
character from some old people at Ecton, I remember, struck you as
something extraordinary, from its similarity to what you knew of mine.
"Had he died on the same day," you said, "one might have supposed a
transmigration."
[7] January 17, new style. This change in the calendar was made in
1582 by Pope Gregory XIII, and adopted in England in 1752. Every
year whose number in the common reckoning since Christ is not
divisible by 4, as well as every year whose number is divisible by 100
but not by 400, shall have 365 days, and all other years shall have 366
days. In the eighteenth century there was a difference of eleven days
between the old and the new style of reckoning, which the English
Parliament canceled by making the 3rd of September, 1752, the 14th.
The Julian calendar, or "old style," is still retained in Russia and Greece,
whose dates consequently are now 13 days behind those of other
Christian countries.
John was bred a dyer, I believe of woollens, Benjamin was bred a silk
dyer, serving an apprenticeship at London. He was an ingenious man. I
remember him well, for when I was a boy he came over to my father in
Boston, and lived in the house with us some years. He lived to a great
age. His grandson, Samuel Franklin, now lives in Boston. He left
behind him two quarto volumes, MS., of his own poetry, consisting of
little occasional pieces addressed to his friends and relations, of which
the following, sent to me, is a specimen.[8] He had formed a short-hand
of his own, which he taught me, but, never practising it, I have now

forgot it. I was named after this uncle, there being a particular affection
between him and my father. He was very pious, a great attender of
sermons of the best preachers, which he took down in his short-hand,
and had with him many volumes of them. He was also much of a
politician; too much, perhaps, for his station. There fell lately into my
hands, in London, a collection he had made of all the principal
pamphlets relating to public affairs, from 1641 to 1717; many of the
volumes are wanting as appears by the numbering, but there still
remain eight volumes in folio, and twenty-four in quarto and in octavo.
A dealer in old books met with them, and knowing me by my
sometimes buying of him, he brought them to me. It seems my uncle
must have left them here when he went to America, which was about
fifty years since. There are many of his notes in the margins.
[8] The specimen is not in the manuscript of the Autobiography.
This obscure family of ours was early in the Reformation, and
continued Protestants through the reign of Queen Mary, when they
were sometimes in danger of trouble on account of their zeal against
popery. They had got an English Bible, and to conceal and secure it, it
was fastened open with tapes under and within the cover of a joint-stool.
When my great-great-grandfather read it to his family, he turned up the
joint-stool upon his knees, turning over the leaves then under the tapes.
One of the children stood at the door to give notice if he saw the
apparitor coming, who was an officer of the spiritual court. In that case
the stool was turned down again upon its feet, when the Bible remained
concealed under it as before. This anecdote I had from my uncle
Benjamin. The family continued all of the Church of England till about
the end of Charles the Second's reign, when some of the ministers that
had been outed for non-conformity, holding conventicles[9] in
Northamptonshire, Benjamin and Josiah adhered to them, and so
continued all their lives: the rest of the family remained with the
Episcopal Church.
[9] Secret gatherings of dissenters from the established Church.
[Illustration: Birthplace of Franklin. Milk Street, Boston.]

Josiah, my father, married young, and carried his wife with three
children into New England, about 1682. The conventicles having been
forbidden by law, and frequently disturbed, induced some considerable
men of his acquaintance to remove to that country, and he was
prevailed with to accompany them thither, where they expected to
enjoy their mode of religion with freedom. By the same wife he had
four children more born there, and by a second wife ten more, in all
seventeen; of which I remember thirteen sitting at one time at his table,
who all grew up to be men and women, and married; I was the
youngest son, and the youngest child but two, and was born in Boston,
New England.[10] My mother, the second wife, was Abiah Folger,
daughter