Twelfth Generation

2320. Peter Folger¹⁵² was born about 1607 in Norwich, County Norfolk, England.¹⁹⁵ Another source says born 1618 in Nantucket, MA. He died in 1690 in Nantucket, MA.¹⁹⁶ "Peter Folger, son of John, born in England, accompanied his father to America in 1635 to Boston and probably emigrated with him to the Vineyard in 1642. He married in 1644 Mary Morrill, who had been Governess in the family of Hugh Peters and came with him to America. Whilst at the Vineyard he taught school and also practiced as a surveyor of lands. He also assisted the younger Mayhew in his work of Christianizing the native Indians. Rev. Experience Mayhew, in a letter to John Gardner, Esq. dated 1694, stated that Thomas Mayhew, Jr. left for England in 1657. He left the care of his church, or mission, with Peter Folger. Peter became a Baptist and after his removal to Nantucket is said to have baptized two persons and in his old age became a Quaker.

At a meeting of the proprietors of the Island of Nantucket held in Salisbury, Mass. in the latter part of 1660 or early part of 1661, five persons were chosen to measure and lay out the land and in the order it is said that what shall be done by them of any of the three of them, Peter Folger being one, shall be accounted legal and valid. This note show the confidence they placed in his judgment and integrity. Whilst a resident of the Vineyard, he acquired the Indian language, which was of great service to him in business affairs and in enabling him to communicate religious instruction to the natives.

In the summer of 1659 he is said to have accompanied as an interpreter Tristram Coffin and others, who visited the Island of Nantucket to view it about the time of the purchase from Thomas Mayhew. He was there in 1661 and 1662 surveying and on the 4th of July 1663. The proprietors of Nantucket gave him half a share of land on Nantucket, or half as much as one of the twenty purchasers, provided he would come to inhabit with his family on the aforesaid island within one year after that date and to use the English in the way of interpreter between the Indians and them upon all necessary occasions. He accepted the grant and moved there with his family within the specified time. On the 21st of July, 1673, he was chosen Clerk of the Courts, which office he held until his death in 1690. In his poem, "Looking-Glass for the Times", published in Apr. 23, 1676, he shows himself an advocate for religious liberty and strongly condemns the persecuting spirit exhibited in New England in his day. Dr. Ben Franklin, his grandson, when in England, found no "Arms" for the Folgers at the Herald Office and in his researches concluded that they were a Flemish family who came over to England in the time of Queen Elizabeth." Peter Folger and Miribba (Mary) Merrill were married in 1644 in Martha's Vineyard, MA.⁵⁷ 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.

2321. Miribba (Mary) Merrill died in 1704 in Nantucket, MA.¹⁵² She was born in England. Name may have originally been MORRILL vice MERRILL. Children were:

	i.	Joanna Folger died in 1719. She was born in Martha's Vineyard, MA.
	ii.	Bethiah (Bertha) Folger died on 6 Jun 1669 in MA. Drowned with husband, Isaac Coleman, and an Indian when returning with Eleazer Folger in a canoe from Martha's Vineyard where they had been to purchase some furniture. She was born in Martha's Vineyard, MA.
	iii.	Dorcas Folger was born in Martha's Vineyard, MA.
	iv.	Eleazor Folger57 was born in 1648 in Edgartown, MA. He died in 1716 in Nantucket, MA. "He was a man of marked ability and satisfactorily filled the important positions to which he was called. At the time of his death he was one of the Representatives of the Town in the General Court."
	v.	Bethsheba Folger was born in Martha's Vineyard, MA. Name may have been Bathshua or Birhua.
	vi.	Patience Folger was born in 1659 in Martha's Vineyard, MA.
1160	vii.	John Folger II.
	viii.	Abiah (Abigail) Folger was born on 15 Aug 1667 in Nantucket, MA. She died in 1752 in Boston, Suffolk Co., MA. She was buried in Boston, Suffolk Co., MA.
	ix.	Experience Folger was born in 1668 in Martha's Vineyard, MA. She died on 6 Apr 1739.