Mary Morrell Folger
~1619–1704 — Indentured Servant, Grandmother of Benjamin Franklin
Mary Morrell is your direct ancestor—roughly your 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 We Know
Mary Morrell was born around 1619, 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 Eleazer Folger (1648) is your direct ancestor. Their daughter Abiah Folger (1667) married Josiah Franklin and became the mother of Benjamin Franklin. Mary Morrell is therefore the grandmother of Benjamin Franklin and simultaneously your direct ancestor through a different child—making Franklin your documented cousin.
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 you.
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.