Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/14

4 Franklin, which had formerly been the name of a particular order of individuals.

This petty eſtate would not have ſuſſiced for their ſubſiſtence, had they not added the trade of blackſmith, which was perpetuated in the family down to my uncle's time, the eldeſt ſon having been uniformly brought up to this employment: a cuſtom which both he and my father obſerved with reſpect to their eldeſt ſons. In the reſearches I made at Eaton, I found no account of their births, marriages, and deaths, earlier than the year 1555; the pariſh regiſter not extending farther back than that period.