USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of Boston and eastern Massachusetts > Part 14
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In 1825 the subject of the water supply of Boston attracted the attention of the authori- ties, and an investigation of the sources for a pure supply was made, and in 1837 he was appointed on a commission to inquire still fur- ther into the matter. He dissented from the majority in the recommendation of Spot and Mystic ponds, and recommended Long Pond (Lake Cochituate). Others high in authority differed from his conclusion, but still he was immovable in adherence to his recommenda-
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tion, in spite of rejection by popular vote, to which it had been submitted, and it was not renewed till 1844, when he was again in a position of influence on the commission. His plan was, however, adopted March 30, 1846; the ground was broken five months after, and on October 25. 1848, he had the pleasure of seeing his plan, so long resisted, finally tri- umphant, and the public fountain playing for the first time in the presence of a large con- course of people. He was for several years a senator from Suffolk in the Massachusetts general court, and the first president of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers.
The Boston Daily Advertiser, in a notice of him at the time of his death says, "He was of a kindly and benevolent disposition. affable in his manners, warm and unfaltering in his attachment to his friends. His sense of justice and his fair appreciation of the rights of others showed to great advantage in many of his public works.'
A memoir of Hon. James Fowle Baldwin, by Dr. Usher Parsons, was published in 1865. From his memoir are gleaned the following tributes :
"He was a gentleman of highly respect- able attainments, and surpassed by none as a scientific and practical engineer. He was em- ployed by the State to superintend the con- struction of its gigantic public works. He was a prominent member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and during many years held the position in that learned society in the section of Technology and Civil Engineering." Upon his decease a brief sketch of his life and public services was pre- sented and read before that society, and soon after published in its Transactions.
Hon. James F. Baldwin had the care of the affairs of Count Rumford's daughter, the Countess Rumford, a great part of her life. and she at her decease left him a generous be- quest. "It may be fairly claimed that the city of Boston is pre-eminently indebted to the forecast, firmness, and professional skill of Mr. Baldwin for the present abundant and constant supply of pure water from Cochitu- ate." Instead of three millions of gallons daily for the first ten years, the amount was actually fifteen millions of gallons during that period.
"Mr. Baldwin was of commanding presence, being considerably above six feet in stature, and remarkably well proportioned." His mind was clear, but not rapid in its operation. He came to his conclusions by successive steps, carefully taken and closely examined ; but the
results once reached, his confidence in them was rarely shaken. Confidence in his integrity enabled him to settle questions of the transfer of property with a facility that was surprising. especially with those persons who had not the clearest conviction of the invariable upright- ness of corporate bodies in their dealings with individuals. He endeavored to encourage and assist young students who were pursuing the study of civil engineering, and the number were many who remembered him with affec- tion and veneration.
He was especially the friend and protector of the orphans. His last illness was of short duration. Returning from a walk on the day of his death, he complained of indisposition, and speaking a few words to his wife, he soon expired.
(\') Clarissa Baldwin, daughter of Lo- ammi (4). born at Woburn. December 31. 1791, died there May 27, 1841, aged forty- nine : married January 20, 1812, Thomas Brewster Coolidge, of Hallowell, born Decem- ber 8, 1785, son of Benjamin and Mary Carter ( Brewster ) Coolidge, of Boston and Woburn. Children : 1. Benjamin, born at Hallowell, Maine, November 10, 1812, died at Lawrence. Massachusetts, August 25, 1871 ; married Oc- tober 1. 1844, Mary White, born at Medford. Massachusetts, January 14, 1810, died at Law- rence, April 11. 1883, daughter of Jonas and Mary ( Wright ) Manning, of Woburn. Two children : Baldwin, born at Woburn, July 7. 1845 : see forward. Brewster, born November 10, 1848. died at Lawrence, June 21. 1853. 2. Thomas Brewster, born at Hallowell. May 3. 1815: died at Woburn, unmarried, February 18. 1895.
Baldwin Coolidge, son of Benjamin Cool- idge, and grandson of Clarissa Baldwin (5), was born at Woburn. July 7, 1845 ; was mar- ried at Lawrence, February 7, 1866, to Lucy, born at Newburyport, Massachusetts, Novem- ber 24. 18444. died at Woburn, August 13. 1904, daughter of Nathan Thomas and Han- nah ( Noyes) Plumer, of Newburyport ; was a soldier in the Sixth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, campaign of 1864, in the Civil War .* He was band boy at the funeral of the first soldier killed in the Civil War. viz. : Sumner Henry Needham, who was killed in the fight at Baltimore. April 19, 1861. Mr. Coolidge was the first city engineer of Law- rence. Massachusetts, and having inherited the
*The Sixth Regiment went to the front three times-in 1861. 1862, and 1864, being the call regi- ment.
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Baldwin scientific ingenuity and versatility of mind, he has become distinguished by his me- chanical feats in photography, and for the artistic excellence and number of his produc- tions in that line of work.
(\') George Rumford Baldwin, son of Colonel Loammi (4), was born in the Bald- win mansion at North Woburn, January 26, 1798, and died there October II. 1888, "hav- ing devoted his lengthened life, with the full possession of his faculties till its close, to the pursuits of practical science, as a surveyor, a civil engineer, and a constructor." The lands of the original Henry Baldwin held by his descendant George R. Baldwin at the time of his death in 1888, included between five and six hundred acres. The mansion is one of the noteworthy survivals of our earliest times in size, arrangement, adornment, and in its well-preserved relics. Within it are to be found implements, household utensils, paint- ings, ornaments, and sundry furnishings, with luxurious appliances, gathered by the genera- tions which have occupied it from birth to death. Piles of trunks and boxes contain their private papers and settlements of estates. Most interesting among its contents is a large, select. and valuable library of many thousand volumes, collected principally by the father and brothers of George R. Baldwin and by himself, giving evidence of their scientific and literary tastes. Learned tomes in many languages, costly illustrated works, series of scientific publications on construction and engineering, and sumptuous editions of the best writers in various departments of literature, are among its treasures. The house and its contents is a memorial of one of the oldest and most dis- tinguished families of its citizens.
His father was the earliest civil engineer in this state, and on the projection of the first of our public enterprises for more extended internal communication the connection of the waters of the Merrimack with those of the harbor by the Middlesex Canal, chartered in 1793, the father of George R. Baldwin was one of its leading promotors. Its course lay through his own estate, the several hundred acres belonging later to George R. Baldwin. and it was completed in 1803. Of this then signal enterprise the father was surveyor, en- gineer, and constructor under the supervision of an English engineer, Weston by name, who was then a resident of Philadelphia. The canal served its uses until superseded by the Lowell railroad. It is necessary to know these facts in order to gain a background for the
after career of the son, George Rumford Bald- win. He early found opportunity for the exer- cise of the family ingenuity by engaging in the profession of work of the older members of the family.
He was the son of his father's second wife. His middle name recalled the friendly and intimate relations which existed between his father and the distinguished Count Rumford. When the friend had attained rank and title at Munich, a correspondence began between the two which is of great personal and his- torical interest. In a letter following the birth of George Rumford Baldwin, the father writes to the Count, "I have had a son born to me to whom I have given your name." The father wished this boy, as he grew up, to enter Har- vard - College, but the son was disinclined to scholarship in that institution as its standard then was, and from his earliest years his bent was for mathematical and scientific studies, pursued by himself, and for practical out-of- door work in waterways, surveying and en- gineering, in the examination of mills and water-power, dams and raceways. He, as we have already noticed, had marked facilities for practice of this sort, with preliminary train- ing in a school kept by Dr. Stearns in Medford, and by accompanying his father and brother in field and office work. In his fourteenth year he made some sketches of the fortifi- cations of Boston harbor in the war of 1812, of which his brother Loammi Baldwin was the chief engineer.
A series of liis diaries for more than fifty years contain daily entries of his employments and occupations. He lived a life of mar- vellous industry, of wide travel, and of useful service. He was called upon as expert wit- ness, referee or examiner in many ways, at a period when the development of our railroads and manufacturing enterprises made a demand for talent and skill. He helped form the first associated company of engineers. He was naturally shy, modest, diffident, and reticent, of most retiring and undemonstrative ways. therefore when called upon for any utterance in public before many persons it was for him a serious strain. His social intercourse was limited, and under no circumstances could he have made a speech in public of advocacy or argument. The following were some of his early engagements: 1821, built P. C. Brook's stone bridge; 1822-1823, in Pennsylvania with his brother; 1823-25, at factories in Lowell ; 1826, surveyed Charlestown Navy Yard ; exe- cuted Marine Railway ; 1831-33, in England ;
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1833-34, on Lowell railroad; 1834-36, in Nova Scotia : 1837, in Georgia, on Brunswick Canal. In 1845 he was chief engineer on the route of the Buffalo and Mississippi railroad. In 1846 he was employed on the examination of the water power of Augusta, Georgia, and by the national government on the Dry Docks in Washington and Brooklyn. In 1847 he was summoned to Quebec to engage on a pro- fessional task which occupied him till he com- pleted it in 1856. This was the introduction of water into the city. He was in full super- intendence, under the mayor and a water board. In the course of the work he sailed with his family to Europe to superintend the casting of the pipes, gates, etc., and to arrange for their shipment.
In 1857-58 he was in Europe with his family, principally in Paris and London, with many excursions. With accomplished skill in draughting and etching, his pencil was ever busy in sketching all the objects of special interest, and his descriptions are illustrated by a mass of drawings, more or less perfected.
Ile was connected as consulting engineer with many more modern works, the most im- portant, perhaps, being the Boston, Hartford, and Erie railroad. His journals show how fully every interval between these public works was improved. He was skilled in all family, horticultural, and agricultural labors, and his pen was ever busy in his own affairs, or for the service of friends.
George R. Baldwin married, December 6, 1837, the stepdaughter of his brother, Loammi Baldwin, namely, Catherine Richardson Beck- ford, daughter of Captain Thomas and Cath- erine (Wilder) Beckford, of Charlestown. Massachusetts. Mrs. Baldwin died in Wo- burn, February 5, 1873, aged sixty years. They had one child, a daughter, now Mrs. Cath- erine R. Griffith, and residing in Quebec, Can- ada.
(BY ARTHUR G. LORING.)
Benjamin Thompson, better RUMFORD known as Count Rumford. was a great-great-great- grandson of James Thompson, one of the original settlers of Woburn, and prominent among those who early fixed their residence in that part of that town. which is now known as North Woburn. The same difficulty which meets not a few who search in vain for the details of the old English history of their an- cestors, meets us at the outset, says the family
historian, in regard to him :- but little is known of his English antecedents, except that he was born in 1593; married a wife whose only name known to us was Elizabeth; had three sons and one daughter, all born in Eng- land, and early in 1630, when he was thirty- seven years of age joined the company, who, under the lead of Governor John Winthrop landed in New England during that year. The tradition is that James Thompson landed at Salem in the early part of June.
The numerous individuals bearing this al- most universal name may be considered as befogging the subject, and therefore, in spite of vigilant research, it seems to be impossi- ble to ascertain the place of his birth. Abso- lute proof is lacking up to the present date on the subject. It may be that he belonged to the numerous related families of Thomp- sons in London and several of the nearest counties around that metropolis. These fami- lies embraced a number that were eminent in the intellectual, social, and religious world, including a number who received the order of knighthood. The coats-of-arms of some of them, though differing slightly, are essentially the same. James Thompson first located him- self at Charlestown, where he and wife were admitted to membership in the church at that place. August 31, 1633. He was admitted a freeman later in the same year. In December, 1640. he was one of thirty-two who subscribed the town orders or by-laws for Woburn. This town was incorporated in 1642, and he was chosen a member of the board of selectmen and served the town in that office with occa- sional brief intervals for about twenty years. He held also various minor offices. He was twice married. His first wife, Elizabeth, dy- ing November 13, 1643, he married. Febru- ary 15, 1644, Susannah Blodgett, widow of Thomas Blodgett, of Cambridge. She died February 10, 1661. Children: 1. James, died January 24, 1647, an unmarried young man. 2. Simon, married Mary Converse (Edward, [). 3. Olive, married September 3. 1650, John Cutler, and died before her father's death. 4. Jonathan, see forward.
James Thompson died 1682, at the age of eighty-nine years. His will, dated the last day of February, 1681 (meaning, of course, 1681-2), speaks of him as being greatly stricken in years: names his son, Jonathan Thompson, the only child of his then living ; Sarah Rednap and Hannah Horn (sisters), his grandchildren; John Cutler and Susan- nah Logee (or Logan), his grandchildren, and
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his son jonathan's six children (not given by name ), James Thompson, "my grandchild," and John Sheldon, Senior (who married his son Simon's widow ) ; his son Jonathan he appoints his executor ; Samuel Blodgett, Senior, and John Mousall, overseers, and he gave Mr. Blodgett "Mr. Rogers his book," and Mr. Mousall, "a pair of new gloves."
(II) Jonathan Thompson, son of James Thompson (I), born in England, died at Wo- burn, October 20, 1691, married November 28, 1685, Susanna Blodgett ( Thomas), died February 6, 1697-8, a daughter of his father's second wife who bore her mother's name. He inherited his father's homestead. He was the first male teacher ever employed under the authority of the town of Woburn .. He was also in subsequent years a constable and town sexton. Children: 1. Susannah, born July 4, 1661, married March 7, 1700, Abraham Rob- erts of Reading. 2. Jonathan, born September 28, 1663, see forward. 3. James, born 1666, died young. 4. James born June 27, 1667, married October 22, 1695, Sarah Trask. 5. Sarah, born June 1, 1670, married April II, 1692, John Swan. 6. Simon, born June 15. 1673, married December 12, 1700, Anna Butterfield. 7. Ebenezer, born August 18, 1676, died February 19, 1697-8, unmarried.
(III) Jonathan Thompson, son of Jona- than Thompson (2), born September 28, 1663, died 1748, married Frances Whitmore, daugh- ter of Francis Whitmore, of Cambridge. He was a resident of Woburn, in the part now North Woburn. Children: I. Jonathan, born February 9, 1689-90, married first, September 3. 1713, Phebe Carter, of Woburn; married second, Abigail Fowle, of Woburn. 2. Han- nah, born January 28, 1691-92, married Josiah Pierce. 3. Joseph, born October 20, 1694, married December 30, 1718, Sarah Bradshaw, of Medford. 4. James, born November 14, . 1696, married Mary Hancock, of Lexington. 5. Susannah, born July 6, 1699, married March 21, 1722, Benjamin Mead. 6. Ebenezer, born March 30, 1701, see forward. 7. Mary, born August 18, 1703, married first, William Cow- dry, of Reading ; married second, January 20, 1736-7, Captain Isaac Hartwell, of Oxford. 8. Samuel, born September 8, 1705, married Ruth Wright, of Woburn. 9. Patience, born October 25. 1713, married Timothy Lainson, of Concord. 10. Esther, married 1740, Amos Lamson. II. Jabez, married November 13, 1735, Lydia Snow. 12. Daniel, died young.
(IV) Ebenezer Thompson, son of Jonathan Thompson (3), born March 30, 1701, died
1755, married September 27, 1728, Hannah Converse, born May 10, 1706, daughter of Captain Robert and Mary (Sawyer ) Converse of Woburn. He was captain of the local militia company designated as the second foot company of the second regiment of Middlesex County, of which regiment Eleazer Tyng, Esq., was colonel. Thompson's commission was dated July 3, 1753. He occupied the house now standing, known as the Rumford birth- place. Children : 1. Benjamin, born Novem- ber 27, 1729, see forward. 2. Ebenezer, born September 15, 1731, graduated Harvard Col- lege. 1752, and became the pastor of the church at York, Maine, where he died unmarried in 1755. 3. Hannah, born September 21, 1734, married March 8, 1753, Benjamin Flagg of Woburn. 4. Hiram, born May 17, 1743, mar- ried February 3, 1767, Bridget Snow of Wo- burn.
(V) Benjamin Thompson, son of Captain Ebenezer Thompson (4), born November 27, 1729, died November 7, 1755, married May 30, 1752, Ruth Simonds, born October 10, 1730, died at Baldwin. Maine, June 18, 1811, daughter of Lieutenant James and Mary ( Fowle) Simonds ; she married second, Janu- ary 1, 1756, Josiah Pierce, of Woburn. Ben- jamin Thompson died before completing his twenty-sixth year, and resided in the house of his father, now known as the Rumford birthplace. His gravestone is standing in the first burial ground of Woburn. Child: I. Ben- jamin, born March 26, 1753, see forward.
(VI) Benjamin Thompson, son of Benja- min Thompson (5), born March 26, 1753, died in Paris, France, August 21, 1814, married first, November, 1772, or December 25, 1772, Sarah (Walker ) Rolfe, widow of Benjamin Rolfe, and daughter of Reverend Timothy and Eunice (Burbeen) Walker, of Rumford, now Concord, New Hampshire ; she was born Aug- ust 6, 1739, and died January 19, 1792. He married second, October 24, 1805, Marie Anne Pierrette ( Paulze) Lavoisier, born at Mont- brison, January 20, 1758, died at Paris, Feb- ruary 10, 1836, daughter of M. Paulze, farmer- general of the finances, and widow of An- toine Laurent Lavoisier, the famous chemist and discoverer of oxygen. Child: 1. Sarah, born October 18, 1774, ( ?) died at Concord, New Hampshire, December 2, 1852.
His Simonds ancestry is this; I. James Simonds, of Concord and Woburn, whose second wife was Judith ( Phippen) Hayward, to whom he was married January 18, 1643-4. Their son, 2. James Simonds, born at Wo-
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444.
Replica of Statue of Count Rumford ( Benjamin Thompson) on Grounds of Woburn Public Library.
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burn, November 1, 1658, died September 15, 1717, married December 29, 1685, Susanna Blodgett (Samuel, 2, Thomas, I), died Febru- ary 9, 1714-15. Their son, 3, Lieutenant James Simonds, born November 1, 1686, died July 30, 1775, in his eighty-ninth year, married June 17, 1714, Mary Fowle (Captain James, 3, Lieutenant James, 2, George, I), born June 18, 1689, died March 9, 1762. Their daughter, Ruth Simonds, born October 10, 1730, mar- ried May 30, 1752, Benjamin Thompson (5), and was the mother of Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford.
His Converse ancestry is this: Deacon Edward Converse of Woburn, son of Allen Converse, was the father of Lieutenant James Converse, who died at Woburn, May 10, 1715, aged ninety-five years ; married first, October 24, 1643, Anna Long, of Charlestown (Rob- ert), born about 1625, died August 10, 1691. Their son, Major James Converse, born No- vember 16, 1645, died July 8, 1706, married January 1, 1669, Hannah Carter (Captain John), born January 19, 1651, who married second, November 22, 1708, Henry Summers, of Charlestown. Their son Captain Robert Converse, born December 29, 1677, died July 20, 1736, married December 19, 1698, Mary Sawyer, daughter of Joshua and Sarah (Wright-Potter ) Sawyer. Their daughter, Hannah Converse, born May 10, 1706, married September 27. 1728, Ebenezer Thompson (4).
( BY WILLIAM R. CUTTER. )
So much has been written RUMFORD concerning the life of Count Rumford that the principal events in the career of this remarkable man may be summarized in a cursory manner geo- graphically for the sake of convenient refer- ence, paying particular attention in passing, to a few facts or incidents that are not generally known.
AT WOBURN .- Woburn was the place of his birth. Aside from the date of the event and the names of his parents, and the fact that his father died soon after the birth of his dis- tinguished son, and that his mother soon mar- ried again, almost nothing is actually known of his early childhood. He was brought up in the residence of his stepfather, Josiah Pierce ; attended the Woburn grammar school, kept by the celebrated master, John Fowle: was a playmate with younger members of the Baldwin family, his stepfather's opposite neigh- bors ; attended scientific lectures at Harvard
College with Loammi Baldwin, later famous as a colonel under Washington in the Revolu- tionary War and a projector of the Middlesex Canal and as the namesake of the Baldwin apple.
Dr. George E. Ellis, the author of the only standard "Life of Count Rumford" (Memoir of Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, with notices of his daughter. By George E. Ellis. Published for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Boston )* mentions Rumford as dependent on his own exertions, without inherited means, or patronage, or even good fortune ; and while this may be to some extent true of his early life in Woburn, it was not true of his later life. Likewise it must be admitted that he had in his early, as he had in his later life, a lack of that rigid purity of prin- ciple, which, as even Dr. Ellis admits, would not insure with propriety all his domestic rela- tions being the subject of exact record. The cause of these failings in virtue is referred to the influences he encountered on foreign soil. and to foreign customs in such matters which prevailed in his day.
The emblazoned diploma of arms which he received in his thirty-first year from the king of England when he became a knight, states in dignified terms that he was the "son of Benjamin Thompson, late of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, in New England, Gent : deceased, and one of the most ancient families in North America ; that his an- cestors have ever lived in reputable situations in that country where he was born, and have hitherto used the arms of the ancient and re- spectable family of Thompson, of the county of York, from a constant tradition that they derived their descent from that source."
He was born, it is said, in the west end of the house now standing at North Woburn, and generally known by the name of the Run- ford birthplace. His widowed mother was re- married when he was three years old, and his stepfather took his new wife and her child to
*"'The Life of Rumford by Prof. James Renwick" (Spark's Biography, 2nd ser., vol. V.) is the next considerable American performance on the sub- ject. Professor Renwick expresses obligation for the use of a manuscript belonging to Josiah Pierce. half-brother of Count Rumford, entitled by its author "Outlines of the Family, Infancy and Child- hood of Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford." This manuscript was in existence in 1845, but its pres- ent whereabouts is to us unknown. Josiah Pierce, half brother of Count Rumford, married Phebe, daughter of Daniel and Phebe (Snow) Thompson, of Woburn. His wife's father was killed in the battle of Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1775. For an account of their children see "Thompson Memorial" (Boston, 1887), p. 50. This branch of the Pierce family were among the founders of the present town of Rumford, Maine.
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