Mary Morrill
Mary Morrill/Morrel/Morrills/Morill (Circa 1620 – 1704) was the grandmother of Benjamin Franklin who was an American printer, journalist, publisher, author, philanthropist, abolitionist, public servant, scientist, librarian, diplomat, and inventor.
Mary married Peter Folger, a miller and schoolteacher in 1644. Benjamin Franklin's mother, Abiah Folger was born on August 15, 1667 in Nantucket, Massachusetts.
Mary was mentioned by name as a historical figure in Herman Melville's fictional Moby Dick in chapter 24 which is entitled "The Advocate". This chapter is a defense of Nantucket's whaling industry. In it, Melville sets up a series of objections to that industry, one of which is "No good blood in their veins?" His response to this objection is:
"They have something better than royal blood there. The grandmother of Benjamin Franklin was Mary Morrel [sic]; afterwards, by marriage, Mary Folger, one of the old settlers of Nantucket, and the ancestress to a long line of Folgers and harpooneers--all kith and kin to noble Benjamin--this day darting the barbed iron from one side of the world to the other."
Other notable descendants
- Ezra Cornell, Co-Founder of Cornell University
- James Athearn Folger, Founder of Folger's Coffee
- Henry Clay Folger, Founded the Folger Shakespeare Library with his wife
- Mayhew Folger, Captain of the sealing ship Topaz that rediscovered the Pitcairn Islands in 1808
- Rev. Phebe Ann Coffin Hanaford, Author, Poet, Suffragist, Editor, First female minister in New England
- Maria Mitchell, Astronomer
- Lucretia Coffin Mott, Feminist