Career
Mary immigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony as an indentured servant probably belonging to Hugh Peters. Mary married Peter Foulger in 1644. Peter Foulger paid Hugh Peters the sum of 20 shillings to pay off Mary"s servitude, which he declared was the best appropriation of money he had ever made.
Their daughter, Abiah Folger (Benjamin Franklin"s mother), was born on August 15, 1667 in Nantucket.
(Foreign their other children and notable descendents, see Peter Foulger)
Mary was mentioned by name as a historical figure in Herman Melville"s fictional Moby-Dick in chapter 24 which is entitled The Advocate. This chapter is a defense of Nantucket"s whaling industry.
In it, Melville sets up a series of objections to that industry, one of which is "Number good blood in their veins?" His response to this objection is:
"They have something better than royal blood there. The grandmother of Benjamin Franklin was Mary Morrel.
Afterwards, by marriage, Mary Folger, one of the old settlers of Nantucket, and the ancestress to a long line of Folgers and harpooneers—all kith and kin to noble Benjamin—this day darting the barbed iron from one side of the world to the other.".
