pay as Constable on Feby. 23, 1666, amounting to £1-15-0. On July 4, 1672, "Nathanell Raynalls" as juror signed a verdict of guilty on an inquiry over an Indian called Pungatowen.

On May 29, 1677, Nathaniel was sixth on a list of 129 craftsmen of Boston (early High Tariff Protectionists) praying for protection in their several callings against strangers. He was usually described as cordwainer (shoe-maker). On Suffolk County Court records there are numerous references to accounts for shoes sold by him, such as:

3 April, 1662, pair of shoes.... 31 January, 1666, two pairs of shoes.

3 July, 1666, several pairs of shoes.

£ 0 04 02 11 04 4 08 00

He went bond for Samuel Phillips, 1667, in Wilson vs. Phillips, debt. On Dec. 12, 1666, his brother-in-law, John Brackett, willed £10-0-0 to Nathaniel and his wife, Priscilla (Brackett) Reynolds.

Not long after his first marriage, and but two months before his father's death, Nathaniel appears in the realty records:

Captain Thomas Savage and wife Marie for £278 sold to Nathaniell Reynolds of Boston, 'shoo-maker', a dwelling-house on north side of Conduit Street, Boston, cellars and backyard with equal propriety in the passage between it and the house that was Anthony Lowes (now in the occupancy of Samuel Kendall) bounded by: Conduit Street, S. E.; Philip Wharton, N. E.; Joshua Scottow, N. W.; Samuel Kendall (or was it Sendall?), S. W. Dated Feby. 27, 1659; entered August 12, 1661, in Book I, folio 488 of Suffolk Deeds.

Suffolk Deeds (IV-260) also record:

"Nathaniell Reynolds, Sonne & Heyre of ye Late Robert Reynolds of Boston, shoo-maker." Robert Reynolds had sold 1646 about eleven perches (sq. rods) to Thomas Painter, to Thomas Wyborne, and to John Lake, tailor. Lake built a dwelling house. Nathaniel signed quit-claim Dec. 10, 1662: 'bounded by Nathaniel Reynolds, N. and E.; Thomas Bligh (Nathaniel's son-in-law in later years), S.; High Street, W.' Registered, March 3, 1664-65.

Suffolk Deeds (IV:182) mention Nathaniel as owning land worth

£95, with 102 feet frontage; 10 broad rear; dwelling house 332.

On March 4, 1663-64, reference is made to transfer, John Button to Nathaniel Reynolds, of "Land and house; house is not jetted over ye passageway."

Suffolk Deeds (IV:268):

"William and Anne Hudson of Boston: for £14 sell 500 acres of land, meadows and upland, at Quinapaug within ye jurisdiction of Providence, being land which Joshua Foote (of Mendon) purchased of Sacont and George Sacont, Indians, thereabouts inhabiting, June 18, 1655." Deed dated Feby. 4, 1664-65.

This is the 500 acres mentioned in the last paragraph of Nathaniel's will. The mention in the will would lead us to believe that title to the

land was in dispute. Quinebaugh is in the northeast corner of Windham County, Conn. When Nathaniel bought the land, that territory was claimed by Providence; but some years later the commission of Lord Say and Seele adjudicated the intercolonial disputet and awarded it to Connecticut, whereupon the Rhode Island land-owners were ousted.

In a transfer of land March 20, 1671, by John Button, miller, mention is made of boundary, as "Nathaniel Reynolds, East --- passageway through land of said Reynolds to the street."

From Robert's will we have seen that Robert's considerable property and the family home on the corner of Washington and Milk Streets, Boston, now the site of the Boston Evening Transcript Building, was given to his wife. When Robert's widow died in 1663, four years after Robert, the entire entailed property came to Nathaniel. With the exception of several small parcels which he sold, or gave to his children, his ownership continued until his death in 1708. It thus came about that for many years Nathaniel was the landlord of Josiah Franklin, father of the famous statesman. In the little house rented of Captain Reynolds, Benjamin Franklin was born, January 6, 1706, o. s., son of Josiah & Abiah (Folger) Franklin. At a meeting of the Boston Selectmen, April 27, 1691, it is recorded:

"Libertie granted to Josiah Frankline to erect a building 8 Foote square upon the Land belonging to Lt. Nathaniel Reynalds neere the South Meetinge house."

We abbreviate the account given in N. G. Shurtleff's History‡ of Boston:

"Close by the large and comfortable mansion houses that formerly lined the southerly side of Milk Street, once stood a modest little wooden building, which from its associations soon eclipsed in notoriety and interest its more imposing neighbors. It was the humble tenement that first gave shelter to the infant Franklin. In the days of Franklin's father, the estate was quite small, the whole house not covering more land than would now be required for a genteel parlor, being only twenty feet on the street.

"The lot of Robert Reynolds was more extensive at the time of the first grant than at the time that Josiah Franklin, chandler, was the occupant of its easterly portion, for it extended westerly as far as the present Washington Street.

"On the fourth of November, 1683, Nathaniel Reynolds was compelled to mortgage the estate for security to pay £50 to Hugh Drury, at which time it was in the occupancy of Mr. Robert Breck. Soon after this transaction, Lieutenant Reynolds mortgaged the estate to Simeon Stoddard, Esqu., on the eleventh of December, 1691, for the like sum of £50. Mr. Drury discharged the former mortgage on the fourth of the following January. The last mortgage was discharged April 20th, 1693."

"Upon the street, the front of the Franklin house was rudely clapboarded, and the sides and rear were protected from the inclemencies of the New England climate by large rough shingles. In height the house was about three stories. In front the second story and attic projected somewhat into the street, over the principal story on the ground floor. On the lower floor of the main house there was one room only.

†Published 1891: Chapter 51.

A detailed account of this boundary trouble is given on page 131 of the 1922 Reynolds Family Annual. Nathaniel was not the only Reynolds to suffer loss by the boundary quarrel.

This, which probably served the Franklins as a parlor and sitting-room, and also for the family eating-room, was about twenty feet square, and had two windows on the street. In the center of the southerly side of the room was one of those noted large fireplaces, framed in a most capacious chimney; on the left of this was a spacious closet. On the ground floor, connected with the sitting-room through an entry, was the kitchen. The second story originally contained but one chamber, and in this the windows, door, fireplace, and closet were similar in number and position to those in the parlor beneath it.

"The attic was also, originally, one unplastered room, and had a window in front on the street, and two common attic windows, one on each side of the roof, near the back part of it."

If this description is compared with the detailed property map in this book, and with the lithographed conception of the appearance of the house, the two will be made clear.

Josiah Franklin came from Banbury, Oxfordshire, 1685, and probably at once became tenant of Captain Nathaniel Reynolds, absentee landlord living in Bristol. After rearing his prodigious family, Josiah moved out of this house only in 1712-perhaps because Nathaniel, 2nd, desired to occupy it himself. Franklin bought of Peter Sargeant, Esq., an inn known as "The Blue Ball" at the corner of Hanover and Union Streets. It may be that Nathaniel, 3rd, moved into the little house, and this Nathaniel almost certainly occupied it after his marriage in 1716, as he had bought for £100 a quitclaim from his brothers John and Philip†, after their parents had died during 1716-17. Nathaniel, 3rd, died aged 26, in 1719, and his will gave it to his wife Mary (Snell) Reynolds, who soon thereafter removed to Brockton (then North Bridgewater, Mass. She sold it to her uncle-in-law John Fosdick in 1725, mentioned below. The large stone house on the corner of Washington Street at Milk was sold by Captain Nathaniel Reynolds April 25, 1693, to Simon Daniel. This‡ latter was upon the site of Robert's original dwelling 1635.

Captain Nathaniel is described upon the Boston tax list of 1687 for "six houses, mills, wharves, etc.," for a tax of 2/2.

Under Captain Nathaniel's name upon the Boston Tax List 1687 is written: "Houses, mills, wharves, etc., six; tax two shillings, two pence." His name also appears upon the list of 1695. At his death he still owned the Boston property, though Franklin occupied one house, and his sonin-law, John Fosdick, occupied another. At his death in 1708 Captain Nathaniel willed the property to his eldest son, Nathaniel, 2nd, who held the property until his death; and a part of the property to his eldest daughter Sarah (Mrs. John Fosdick). In the estate, it was appraised at £150. Boston then had a population of about 9,000.

On May 9, 1683, Nathaniel was made administrator of the estate of his deceased son-in-law, Thomas Bligh, first husband of Sarah Reynolds,

†Suffolk Registry of Deeds, printed Vol. VIII: folio 406.

A row of trees stood in front of the Old South Church, just across Milk Street, but these were burned by the British troops in 1775, with the house of Governor Winthrop.

THE BIRTHPLACE OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

At the time (1706) this house was owned by Captain Nathaniel Reynolds and was in the tenancy of Josiah Franklin.

See