BENJAMIN THOMPSON-COUNT RUMFORD.

MEMOIR.*

BENJAMIN THOMPSON, better known as COUNT RUMFORD, and under that name identified with educational institutions as founder or benefactor, in Germany, England, and the United States, was born at Woburn, in Massachusetts, on the 26th of March, 1753. The father, Benjamin Thompson, and the mother Ruth Simonds, came from the original stock of the first colonists of Massachusetts Bay-his first paternal ancestor, James Thompson, was of Winthrop's company, and at the age of thirty-seven was in Charlestown in 1630, one of the original settlers of that portion of the town which was soon set off as a separate precinct, under the name of Woburn. Here he lived to the age of ninety-a man of worth, position, and trust-being one of the 'selectmen' of the town. Under the roof of his grandfather, Captain Ebenezer Thompson, the future Count Rumford was born. While yet a child (hardly twenty months old) his father died, and in March, 1756, his widowed mother was married to Josiah Pierce, Jr., who took his wife and her child to a new home.

In the village school of Woburn, young Thompson had the teaching of Mr. John Fowle, (a graduate of Harvard College in 1747) and later in his school life (at the age of eleven) was in the family of a relative (Mr. Hill), an able teacher, in the adjoining town of Medford. Just before he reached the age of fourteen, he elected, in the alternative of a farmer's life, to become an apprenticed clerk to Mr. John Appleton of Salem, an importer of British goods and a dealer in all the miscellaneous articles of a town store. His latest biographer (Rev. George E. Ellis) remarks on the inspection of bills made out by the young clerk, that the penmanship, mercantile style, and business-like signature, all indicate good training and an aptitude for his situation. But we have his own declaration, that his heart was not in his business, and that his ambition for a more lit

• Memoir of Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, with notices of his daughter. By George E. Ellis. Published in connection with an edition of Rumford's complete works in 4 vols. Memoir 640 pages, with illustrations. By the American Academy of Science, 1871-5.

erary and scientific career was fed by the conversation of customers and visitors of Mr. Appleton (of whose family he was a member), some of whom were then members of a social evening club, which has now become the Essex County Institute. Be that as it may, he was addicted to mechanical inventions, and under the instruction of Thomas Barnard, the eldest son of Rev. Thomas Barnard of the First Church of Salem from 1755 to 1776, made some progress in algebra, geometry, and astronomy. Such was his skill in compounding chemicals, that he was employed in making gunpowder to be used in a local celebration over the repeal of the Stamp Act. This experiment cost him dearly-the materials exploded in the preparation, and led to his being taken back to his mother's home for quiet and surgical treatment, and ultimately to winding up his apprenticeship with Mr. Appleton.

During his enforced leisure at Woburn, he was in correspondence with a young townsman (Loammi Baldwin, who afterward did good service as an officer in the Revolutionary War, and became eminent as a civil engineer) on the solution of problems in optics, astron omy, and meteorology.

In the autumn of 1769, Thompson was sent to Boston to engage in a business similar to that which he had been learning at Salemhaving in the previous winter taught a district school in Wilmington. From a journal kept at this time, it appears that while in Boston, a clerk with Mr. Hopestill Capen, a dry goods dealer, he took evening lessons in French, and practiced drawing and etchings with pen and pencil. He also enters a recipe for making rockets of different sizes, and directions for the 'back sword' exercise, and the cost of materials for getting up an electrical machine.'

Being obliged to leave Mr. Capen, on account of the loss of trade which followed the non-importation resolution of the Boston merchants, Thompson entered the office of Dr. Hay of Woburn, and in the interval of his professional reading, in company with young Baldwin, walked over to Cambridge (a distance of eight miles) to attend the lectures of Prof. Winthrop on natural philosophy. When the friends returned home, they were in the habit of repeating the experiments which they had witnessed, and trying others with such apparatus of their own contrivance. Knowledge acquired in this way, sought with such avidity, and such sacrifice of ease and comfort, digested by conversation, and brought home to practical

* Mr. Ellis cites Hon. C. W. Upham of Salem for the statement, that when he, a college student in 1818-19, taught school in a district in Wilmington, following Thompson at a distance of fortyseven years, the oldest people very well remembered their distinguished and eccentric master of the former age. Strange stories were told of certain athletic and gymnastic performances and feats, in which he sometimes exercised himself and his scholars within the walls, as well as outside.

use by actual experiment, must have been incorporated into the very substance of the growing mind.

The following entries for the disposal of his time in 1771 are cited by Mr. Ellis. Beginning at eleven o'clock at night,—

From eleven to six, sleep. Get up at six o'clock and wash my hands and face. From six to eight, exercise one half and study one half. From eight till ten, breakfast, attend prayers, &c. From ten to twelve, study all the time. From twelve to one, dine, &c. From one to four, study constantly. From four to five, relieve my mind by some diversion or exercise. From five till bedtime, follow what my inclination leads me to; whether it be to go abroad, or stay at home and read either Anatomy, Physic, or Chemistry, or any other book I want to peruse.

This is followed by the ensuing account of his occupations on each week-day for two weeks:

Monday and Tuesday, Anatomy. Wednesday, Institutes of Physic. Thursday, Surgery. Friday, Chemistry, with the Materia Medica. Saturday, Physic one half, and Surgery one half.

Monday, Anatomy. Tuesday, Anatomy one half, and Surgery one half. Wednesday, Surgery. Thursday, Institutes of Physic. Friday, Physic. Saturday, Chemistry, with the Materia Medica.

When any man, young or old, thus methodically disposes the days of the week and the hours of each day with reference to systematic study and culture in pursuing various branches of knowledge, not neglectful of the laws of health and the necessity of relaxation, we may be sure that he will make, if he be not already, a true philosopher. The fact, also, that Thompson had to teach while he was himself learning, would make it certain that he would do both to better purpose. In boarding around for short periods with successive families in many country towns,-the fashion for the district schoolmaster of those times,-he largely increased his knowledge of men and things.

In a letter addressed to Mr. Baldwin in 1771, he proposes 'the formation of a society for propagating learning and useful knowledge by means of questions to be proposed to a certain number of persons, and each to bring in his answer,' to be entered in a book which he had purchased for that purpose. Here is more fruit from Cotton Mather's Essay to do Good,' or possibly more directly from Franklin's experiment of the 'Junto Club' in Philadelphia.

In the winter of 1771, Thompson taught a district school in the town of Bradford, on the Merrimack. Here he was so well esteemed for faithful services that he was sent for to Concord, New Hampshire, higher up the same river, by Colonel Timothy Walker, and offered a situation in a school of a higher grade, which would secure him a permanent position. Concord, under its Indian name of Penacook, had been claimed on its settlement by the English as being within the bounds and jurisdiction of Massachusetts. As

such it had been incorporated in 1733-34, as a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, under the name of Rumford, probably from a town of that name, generally called Romford, about twelve miles from London, whence some of the original settlers in the New England wilderness had emigrated. The name has interest for us, as it was chosen by Benjamin Thompson for a title when he was made a 'Count of the Holy Roman Empire.' The name of the town was changed to Concord, to mark the restoration of harmony after a long period of agitation as to its provincial jurisdiction and its relations with its neighbors. It was gratitude which prompted Thompson to make the name of Rumford titular, and he expressed most tenderly and reverently his sense of obligation to the venerated. minister of the place,—his patron, guide, and father-in-law.

Thompson had reason for this gratitude and sense of obligation. Had he fallen upon peaceful times, and made his native country his home for life, the propitious start which he received in Concord and the friends which there made his family circle, would have secured for him high position and success.

The Rev. Timothy Walker, the first minister of Concord, New Hampshire, a native of Woburn, and connected already with the Thompson family, had joined the fortunes of the early settlers in 1730 as their spiritual guide, and continued in their service as such till his death, September 2, 1782, after a ministry of fifty-two years. He was one of that class of ministers, characteristic of New England from its colonization down nearly to our own times, who, while holding a position and authority officially and conventionally supreme among the people of a settlement, proved worthy of esteem, and used their influence for unqualified good. Mr. Walker was the most honored citizen of Concord, as well as its beloved minister, and he has been honored in the line of his descendants. He had been thrice sent on missions to England on business connected with the disputes about the jurisdiction of the town and province, and had there impressed the legal counsel which he employed, and the tribunal before which he was heard, in a manner that insured his sucHe also used his opportunities abroad for observation and acquisition, so as to enhance his influence at home. His son, Colonel Timothy Walker, a lawyer, was also a man of talent and position.

cess.

But next to the minister, just previous to Thompson's visit to Concord, Colonel Benjamin Rolfe held place and power in the village. He was the squire, was rich and public-spirited. He is distinguished as having been the first owner and driver of a curricle and a pair of horses in New Hampshire, always excepting the Gov

ernor's at Portsmouth. Colonel Rolfe having lived as a bachelor till he was about sixty years old, then married Sarah, the daughter of the Rev. Timothy Walker, she being at the time about thirty. Unfortunately, some of the interleaved almanacs in which the good minister was in the habit of entering his official acts and matters of church record have been lost, and thus we are left in ignorance of some dates which would interest us. The Concord town records say that Sarah Walker was born October 6, 1739. She was married to Colonel Rolfe in 1769. They had one son, afterward Colonel Paul Rolfe. The father died December 21, 1771, in his sixty-second year, leaving to his widow and son a large estate. He built a fine house at the so-called 'Eleven Lots,' since known as the Rolfe House. It was here that his widow, as the wife of Count Rumford, lived, and died on January 19, 1792, at the age of fifty-two.

When Benjamin Thompson went to Concord as a teacher he was in the glory of his youth, not having yet reached manhood. His friend Baldwin describes him as of a fine manly make and figure, nearly six feet in height, of handsome features, bright blue eyes, and dark auburn hair. He had the manners and polish of a gentleman, with fascinating ways, and an ability to make himself agreeable. So diligently, too, had he used his opportunities of culture and reading, that he might well have shined even in a circle socially more exacting than that to which he was now introduced. We may anticipate here the conclusion to which the review of his whole career will lead us,-that, as a boy or man, he was never one to allow an opportunity of advancement to escape him. He seems to have given satisfaction as a teacher. The traditions that linger in the older homes at Concord, like those at Wilmington, include a large element of the reminiscences of certain accomplishments and activities of the young teacher which were not of strictly official character. He was skilled in vaulting and other athletic feats, and he won very early in his life the repute of gallantry.

When Count Rumford, looking back from the achievements and honors of his foreign career, told his friend Pictet of his deep indebtedness to the Rev. Mr. Walker for kindly oversight and counsel, for fostering patronage, and for fatherly love, his thoughts must have turned into feelings as he tenderly recalled some happy scenes and hours in that country parsonage. There, and to the house of the younger Walker, Thompson often went to give account of his pedagogueship and to enjoy social pleasures. There and at other places, he would meet the daughter and sister in her early widowhood. The tradition is that she facilitated what is often to the young man