[2]: 14 At age 21 and unmarried, Abiah moved from Nantucket to Boston to live with an older sister and her husband, who were members of the Puritan South Church.

[3] Abiah and Josiah's children included John (born 1690), Peter (1692), Mary (1694), James (1696), Sarah (1699), Ebenezer (1701), a son who died young (1703), Benjamin (1706), Lydia (1708), and Jane (1712).

It appears she did everything a parent should, giving him the right combination of attachment and liberty, now and then a touch of discipline, but mostly the time and the space for him to play creatively,"[5]: 65  and that "this is more or less what Franklin said himself, on the few occasions when he is known to have shared any secrets of their relationship.

After their meetings in Paris, the Frenchman came away convinced that Abiah was the principal source of the virtues that her son displayed,"[5]: 66  writing, "It seems that his mother was a woman full of wisdom.

"[5]: 66  One story told to Cabanis, Bunker reports, summed up her qualities especially well: As a child of about six years, Benjamin had been supplied by his parents with quite a few pennies for his visit to a fair in Boston.

Arriving home, Benjamin ran about the house blowing the whistle, and His brothers and sisters laughed at the little boy when he told them how much he had given for his new toy.

[6] Matthew Garrett wrote that "the Autobiography is perhaps the finest example within the modern narrative tradition of a text that habitually compresses major characters - those, that is, who play integral and significant roles within the plot - into minor players.

[1] A fictionalized version of Abiah appeared in the fourth episode of Voyagers!, titled "Agents of Satan," where the central characters prevented her from being hanged during the Salem witch trials.