Family Notes

Nathaniel Barney says of him * "Peter Folger of whom Cotton Mather speaks "as a pious and learned Englishman" has been named as the interpreter for Tristram Coffin Senior when he first visited Nantucket.  He was the only child of John Folger, whose wife was Meribah Gibbs, and came from Norwich, England, a widower, in 1636, having his residence at some time thereafter at Martha's Vineyard. Peter married Mary Morrill in 1644, having bought her of Hugh Peters, to whom she owed service, and paid the sum of 20 pounds, which he very gallantly declared was the best appropriation of money he had ever made.  Their children were two sons and seven daughters, the last of whom, Abiah, was born at Nantucket the 15th of August, 1669. She was the mother of Dr. Franklin, and her visits to her relatives here were very frequent, even in her old age.  During one of her visits particularly she was desirous of a bunch of mint from the garden of her deceased father.  The young man whom she enlisted for the service was Thomas Arthur, and on receiving the parcel from his hands she said to the youth---"I saw that mint placed by my father, in that garden, three score years ago.""


*Unpublished M. S.