Jane Franklin Mecom | "I had the pleasure of your obliging letter with the 1306 dollar Bill"

Jane Franklin Mecom

Manuscript letter signed ("Jane Meco[m]") to Henry Hill ("Hon'd Sir"), 1½ pages (193 x 156 mm) on a bifolium of laid paper (watermarked flower and stem), Boston, 20 March 1794, expressing her thanks for his handling of her brother's estate and for his wellbeing, integral leaf with address directed to "Mr. Henry Hill Esqr. | Philadelphia | favour'd per Capt. Sigourney" and reception docket; some browning to address leaf, loss to lower margin of first leaf, seal tear and repair just obscuring last letter of Mecom's signature and final word of valediction.

Franklin’s youngest and favorite sibling, Jane Franklin Mecom, having moved back to her Boston birthplace, writes to Henry Hill, an old Philadelphia acquaintance. Hill was also known to Mecom’s brother, active in the Revolution and later a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly and the Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Council. Most significantly, Hill was one of the executors of Franklin’s will.

Mecom writes here to express her gratitude for an evident disbursement from her brother’s estate—and her relief that Hill and his household have survived the yellow fever epidemic that struck Philadelphia in the late summer and early autumn of 1793, costing some 5,000 lives.

“I have Several times since I had the pleasure of your obliging letter with the 1306 dollar Bill in it Sat down and called for pen, ink, and paper to give proper information of it, but have been ensconced with So much ill health as obliged me to put it off till a better opportunity.

“I was rejoyced to see a letter from your even hand, tho I had the pleasure of seeing your name in the publick papers which assured me of your welfare at that time of calamity; and I cant describe to you the Exequisite pleasure I felt at Seeing Dr Duffeald's name among the Charitable and Successful physicians in the time of your City's Calamity.” For more on the career of Dr. Edward Duffield, see Franklin’s letter of introduction to Sir Alexander Dick, lot 109.

Mecom continues, “I never have forgot your good ladys polite and humane attention to me when there a little indisposed.

“I rejoyce to find the Lobsters were acceptable. I hope Mrs Hill relished some of it, I feared they would not be perfectly sweet, as a violent hot season set in immediately after the man took them on board his vessel. By some accident your letter is misplaced but I hope I have not omited to answer any thing of consequence. I am sir with great respect your friend and [servant].”

Jane Mecom wrote often to her older brother, keeping him apprised of domestic affairs during his frequent absences abroad. Her letters to Franklin are held almost exclusively by institutions, principally the American Philosophical Society. Consequently, Mecom’s letters are very rare on the market: since 1895, Rare Book Hub records only four, the most recent more than forty years ago.