Background
Benjamin Mecom was born on 29 December 1732 at Boston, Massachusetts. He was the third of the twelve children of Edward Mecom and Jane, youngest sister of Benjamin Franklin.
Benjamin Mecom was born on 29 December 1732 at Boston, Massachusetts. He was the third of the twelve children of Edward Mecom and Jane, youngest sister of Benjamin Franklin.
Mecom was apprenticed to James Parker of New York City, whose business had been established by Franklin in 1742 as a copartnership. Franklin also established the first printing office in Antigua with a manager, in 1748, who died in midsummer of 1752; whereupon Franklin appointed his nephew as his new manager on shares. Mecom sailed from Philadelphia on August 20, 1752, and at St. John found an equipped printery, the only one in the Leeward Islands, with an established, though sometimes suspended, newspaper, the Antigua Gazette, which he revived, with a new serial numbering, in November. It was a weekly until January 1755 and thereafter came out thrice a week, until June 26, 1756, or later. Franklin had planned to give this business to his nephew, but in view of his youth, and to steady him, held him under strict terms, which irked Mecom because he wished to be independent. Mecom made the fact known and was offended when his uncle long delayed an answer and notified him of his decision to quit Antigua. The printing outfit was shipped to Franklin, with whom he later settled all accounts honorably, thereby becoming its owner. He sent it to Boston and there set himself up as a printer and bookseller at Cornhill, before June 1757. Mecom printed editions of The New-England Primer Enlarged (1757) and The New-England Psalter (1758) for the Boston booksellers on terms so low as to be unprofitable.
His business career at "The New Printing-Office" at Boston ended in 1762, probably because he was a very poor business manager. Mecom moved his outfit to New York early in 1763, and there established the "Modern Printing-Office on Rotten-Row". He attempted to issue a newspaper, the New-York Pacquet, with a zero trial number appearing on July 11, 1763. The only other extant issue is Number 6, for August 22, 1763. He failed in New York. Among his creditors was Parker, with whom, by Franklin's consent, the book stock and old Antigua printing outfit were stored as security. Mecom rented Parker's New Haven printery, which was really Franklin's property, and arrived at New Haven early in 1765 to print books and pamphlets, and also to serve as Parker's deputy in the post-office. On July 5, 1765, he revived the Connecticut Gazette, which he carried on till February 19, 1768. Failure in liquidating debts and paying rent to Parker forced his resignation from the postal service in February 1767. But as the press was his uncle's property, he continued to use it until he took it to Philadelphia in 1768 to start anew. Here, in January 1769, he began the Penny Post, a diminutive news sheet, issued thrice a week, which died after only nine issues. In September 1770 he petitioned for a license to sell spirituous liquors in Philadelphia, in order "to support a Number of young growing Children. " However, instead of becoming a rumseller, he got work at his trade with William Goddard, and when the latter removed to Baltimore in 1774, Mecom took his family to Burlington, New Jersey, where he was employed by Isaac Collins.
A sad last notice remains of him in a letter from William Smith of Burlington to Franklin, on July 19, 1776, saying that Mecom was often non-compos mentis and dangerous, and bidding that he be put in a hospital or incarcerated.
Benjamin was married to Elizabeth Mecom.
15 December 1704 - 11 September 1765
27 March 1712 - 7 May 1794
28 June 1737 - 12 June 1764
1729 - 29 November 1807
Born on 1 October 1758.
1768 - 1833
1762 - 1860
Born in December 1760.
Born on 24 October 1771.
1761 - 6 August 1841
