Mary Morrell Folger
1620-1704. Indentured Servant, Grandmother of Benjamin Franklin
Mary Morrell is the Long brothers’ 10th great-grandmother. She was an indentured servant in colonial Massachusetts whose freedom was purchased for twenty pounds by Peter Folger, the man who would become her husband, the co-founder of Nantucket, and the maternal grandfather of Benjamin Franklin.
What the Records Show
Mary Morrell was born in 1620, likely in England. She arrived in Massachusetts as an indentured servant, a common arrangement in which passage to the New World was paid in exchange for a term of bound labor, typically four to seven years. The identity of her master is not recorded in surviving documents.
Peter Folger purchased her freedom for twenty pounds, a substantial sum in the 1640s, roughly equivalent to a year’s wages for a skilled tradesman. They married shortly after. The couple settled first on Martha’s Vineyard, where Peter served as interpreter for the Wampanoag people, then moved to Nantucket around 1663 as part of the original settlement.
Nine Children
Mary and Peter had nine children on Nantucket. Their son John Folger (1659-1732, PID L5YS-VGM) is a direct ancestor of the Long brothers via the verified Folger bridge (Peter Folger → John Folger → Jethro Folger → Jedidah Folger → Eunice Gardner → the Macy and Folger Nantucket marriages). His elder brother Eleazer Folger (1648) is a collateral Nantucket Folger, not in the brothers’ direct chain. Their sister Abiah Folger (1667) married Josiah Franklin and became the mother of Benjamin Franklin. Mary Morrell is therefore the grandmother of Benjamin Franklin and simultaneously a direct ancestor of the Long brothers through her son John Folger, making Franklin a documented cousin of the brothers.
Through her descendants, Mary Morrell’s bloodline connects to Benjamin Franklin, the Folgers Coffee dynasty, Abigail Folger (murdered at 10050 Cielo Drive in 1969), and thousands of other descendants of the Nantucket founding families.
Why She Matters
Mary Morrell arrived in America with nothing, not even her freedom. She was bound labor. A man she would marry paid twenty pounds to release her. Together they raised nine children on an island thirty miles out to sea. One of those children’s descendants became the most celebrated American of the eighteenth century. Another line leads directly to the Long brothers.
She lived to approximately 1704, surviving Peter by fourteen years. She is buried on Nantucket. Wikipedia’s article on Nantucket lists her as “grandmother of Benjamin Franklin.” She deserves to be remembered as more than that. She was a woman who crossed an ocean with nothing and became the matriarch of one of America’s most consequential families.