Benjamin Franklin Papers - To Jane Mecom (unpublished)

In your Letter of March 9. you mention that you wanted to know all about my Buildings. To the East End of my Dwelling House, I have made an Addition of 16 Feet and an half wide and 33 feet long, that is the whole Length of the old House, so that the Front and Back of the old and new Building range even, and the Row of Windows, Eaves and Roof are continu’d so as to appear but one Building. By this Addition I have gain’d a large Cellar for Wood, a Drawing Room or Dining Room on the same Level with our old Dining Room, in which new Room we can dine a Company of 24 Persons, it being 16 Feet wide and 30 ½ long; and it has 2 Windows at each End, the North and South, which will make it an airy Summer Room; and for Winter there is a good Chimney in the Middle made handsome with marble Slabs. Over this Room is my Library of the same Dimensions, with like Windows at each End, and lin’d with Books to the Cieling. Over this are 2 lodging Rooms: and over all a fine Garret. The Way into the Lower Room is out of the Entry passing by the Foot of the Stairs. Into the Library I go thro’ one of the Closets of the old Drawing Room or bed Chamber. And into the two new Rooms above, thro’ a Passage cut off from the Nursery. All these Rooms are now finished and inhabited very much to the Convenience of the Family who were before too much crowded.

The two new Houses next the Street, are three Stories high beside the Garrets, and an arch’d Passage is left in the middle between them to come thro’ down to my Dwelling, wide enough for a Carriage; so that I have the old Passage Lot left free to build another House. The two Houses are 24 feet front each, and 45 deep.

We are all well, and join in Love to you and yours. I am ever Your affectionate Brother

P.S. I forgot to mention, that there is no Staircase in the new Part of my Dwelling as it would have incommoded by Library Room. But knowing the Convenience of two Staircases in a large House, I shall recommend that one be made when I am gone & the Books taken away, which shall go up from the Cellar to the Garret; and that the Long Rooms be divided by Partitions each into two, whereby the Addition may serve to accommodate on occasion a distinct Family. When I look at these Buildings, my dear Sister, and compare them with that in which our good Parents educated us, the Difference strikes me with Wonder; and fills me with humble Thankfulness to that divine Being who has graciously conducted my Steps, and prospered me in this strange Land to a degree that I could not rationally have expected, and can by no means conceive my self to have merited. I beg the Continuance of his Favour but submit to his Will, should a Reverse be determin'd.