Jane Franklin was born at Blue Ball house on Union Street in Boston, Massachusetts on March 27, 1712.
[3] Though Mecom never attended school, she learned to read and write under the tutelage of Benjamin Franklin.
In 1723, Benjamin ran away to become a printer in New York and escape his indenture to his brother, leaving his 11-year-old sister alone.
She was married to a nearly illiterate 22-year-old saddler, Edward Mecom, a poor Scottish immigrant whose swings of mental instability were inherited by at least two of his sons.
Constantly in deep debt, he spent much of his marriage in debtors' prison, leaving his wife to be the family breadwinner.
[3][6] Jill Lepore, the primary and only historian so far of Jane Franklin, theorizes that the young girl could have had an affair and become pregnant out of wedlock from it, and the marriage was an attempt to save the family dignity.
[8] In November 1766, she and her daughters Jenny and Polly established a small shop to sell caps and bonnets that they created using materials sent from London by a friend of Benjamin Franklin.
[6] The shop failed when colonists boycotted imported products due to the Townshend Act, a decision Benjamin Franklin could only encourage.
[9] It was Mecom's homemade soaps that Franklin used to woo the French, presenting the image of a humbled, "homespun" American.
Her distaste for Britain grew substantially, as well, so much so that she considered removing the "crown" stamp from her soaps to replace them with the 13 stars.