... a bland and philosophical exit from the stage! He broke with every Puritan tradition. The Franklins were relatively late comers to New England. They sprang from a long line of blacksmiths at Ecton in Northamptonshire. The seat of the Washingtons was not far away, and Franklin's latest biographer points out that the pinkcoated huntsmen of the Washington gentry may often have stopped at Ecton ...