Mecom made efforts to keep her children out of debtors' prison, the almshouse, and asylums. Two of her sons struggled with mental illness. One son, Benjamin, disappeared during the Battle of Trenton. Jane and Edward Mecom had twelve children: Josiah Mecom I, Edward 'Neddy' Mecom, Benjamin 'Benny' Mecom, Ebenezer Mecom, Sarah 'Sally' Mecom, Peter Franklin Mecom, John Mecom, Josiah Mecom, Jane 'Jenny' Mecom, James Mecom, Mary 'Polly' Mecom, and Abiah Mecom.

He died three weeks before his first birthday. If there had been a child she miscarried it her first son, Josiah Mecom, was born two years later and she named him for her father. Jill Lepore, the primary and only historian so far of Jane Franklin, theorizes that the young girl could have had an affair and become pregnant out of wedlock from it, and the marriage was an attempt to save the family dignity.

Mecom's historians agree that this likely was not a love match. Constantly in deep debt, he spent much of his marriage in debtors' prison, leaving his wife to be the family breadwinner. She was married to a nearly illiterate 22-year-old saddler, Edward Mecom, a poor Scottish immigrant whose swings of mental instability were inherited by at least two of his sons. Īt 15, she was married off, although the legal marrying age in Massachusetts was 16, and her brothers and most of her sisters had married by 24, none of them before 20. Franklin first wrote a letter to Mecom in 1726, and their correspondence continued until Franklin's death in 1790. In 1723, Benjamin ran away to become a printer in New York and escape his indenture to his brother, leaving his 11-year-old sister alone. This education under Benjamin Franklin continued until Mecom was 11 years old. Though Mecom never attended school, she learned to read and write under the tutelage of Benjamin Franklin.

Mecom never attended school, as public schools in Boston did not enroll females. Jane Franklin was born at Blue Ball house on Union Street in Boston, Massachusetts on March 27, 1712. Mecom was the youngest of ten children to Josiah Franklin's second wife, Abiah Folger.

Mecom's father had seven children from a previous marriage. Mecom and Franklin corresponded for sixty-three years, throughout the course of Ben Franklin's life, and some of their letters survive. Jane Franklin Mecom (March 27, 1712 – May 7, 1794) was the youngest sister of Benjamin Franklin and was considered one of his closest confidants.

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