Chapter 35

This chapter consists entirely of endnotes and citations supporting the narrative material in the main text about Franklin's family origins, early education, and formative years in Boston. It documents Franklin's surname etymology, his Puritan heritage, his childhood reading, and his early journalistic work on the New England Courant.

These endnotes provide scholarly support for claims made in the biographical narrative. They trace the Franklin surname to English freemen (franklins) rather than French origins, cite Franklin's own Autobiography and letters as primary sources, and reference secondary works on Puritan New England by scholars like Perry Miller and Edmund Morgan. The notes document Franklin's father Josiah's career as a tallow chandler, his maternal grandmother's Nantucket Quaker roots through Peter Folger, and the family's embrace of Protestant Reformation principles. They support details about Franklin's education at Boston Latin School, his precocious reading of authors including Bunyan, Plutarch, Defoe, and The Spectator, and his 1722 contributions to the New England Courant under the pseudonym Silence Dogood. The notes clarify chronological details, such as Franklin's departure from Boston in September 1723 and his brother James's difficulties with the colonial authorities, while identifying scholarly disputes and textual variants across editions of Franklin's Autobiography.