USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of Boston and eastern Massachusetts > Part 15
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another house not far distant, but long since removed, which stood opposite, as before said. the present Baldwin mansion.
The fact which has been stated, particu- larly in France, that the child's stepfather banished him from his house in his infancy, whether this information be gotten from Count Rumford himself or not, must be taken with much allowance for the exuberance of the French imagination. For it was contrary to the usual New England character and con- trary to the regard which Count Rumford afterwards showed to his mother and her children born of Josiah Pierce. That his early life was always smooth we do not pretend to assert, but that any excessive cruel treatment was given the child, that we deny. Making allowance for overcolored statement, a few facts from the Count's lips are here advanced :
"If the death of my father had not contrary to the order of nature, preceded that of my grandfather, who gave all his property to my uncle, his second son, I should have lived and died an American husbandman. Shortly after the death of my father, my mother contracted a second marriage which proved for her a source of misfortune. A tyrannical husband took me away from my grandfather's house with her. I was then a child ; my grandfather. who survived my father only a few months, left me but a very slender subsistence. I was then launched at the right time upon a world which was almost strange to me, and I was obliged to form the habit of thinking and act- ing for myself and of depending on myself for a livelihood.
"My ideas were not yet fixed ; one project succeeded another, and perhaps I should have acquired a habit of indecision and inconsist- ency, perhaps I should have been poor and un- happy all my life, if a woman had not loved me,-if she had not given me a subsistence. a home, an independent fortune."
Anticipating a little, we continue: "1 mar- ried, or rather, I was married, at the age of nineteen. I espoused the widow of a Colonel Rolfe, daughter of the Rev. Mr. Walker, a highly respectable minister, and one of the first settlers of Rumford. He was already con- nected with my family. He heartily approved of the choice of his daughter, and he himself united our destinies. This excellent man be- came sincerely attached to me : he directed my studies, he formed my taste, and my position was in every respect the most agreeable that could possible be imagined."
It is admitted by Baron Cuvier that Rum-
ford had informed him himself that he would have probably remained in the modest condi- tion of his ancestors if the little fortune which they had to leave him had not been lost during his infancy. Thus a misfortune in early life, as in many other cases, was the cause of his subsequent reputation. His grandfather, from whom he had everything to expect, had given all he possessed to a younger son, leaving his grandson almost penniless." This and the loss of his father and the second marriage of his mother, and his so stated removal from her care, leads to the conclusion that "Nothing could be more likely than such a destitute con- dition to induce a premature display of talent."
These statements and imputations resting apparently upon positive assertions made by himself, however, leave room for supposing that his eulogists, being both of them French- men, may have erred in a matter of sentiment. by exaggerated expressions. ( Ellis, Life. p. 10.) Common reputation gives him an excel- lent mother, who never neglected him, but ap- pears to have treated him with a redoubled love. His own letters to her, when in a state of popular celebrity, comfort and affluence abroad, in her later years, are full of affection and tender regard. The alleged tyranny of his stepfather finds no statement on the part of the new husband's descendants as a reason for the justification of any charges of that kind. The stepfather appears to be in every aspect of the case a kind and faithful husband and took his wife's child with her to a new home, as already shown. The eldest son by her sec- ond marriage grew up with the Count as a playmate. and in after life as a correspondent. and a son of this half-brother never heard any- thing from his father that wouldl warrant an imputation of ill treatment.
It is not to be doubted from his insistent will during life, that he exercised the patience and sympathy of his friends somewhat severely. and by, perhaps, at the outset, a determined unwillingness to apply himself to any routine and rewarding work in accordance with their old-fashioned New England ideas. .
It is evident from the handwriting of the Count when he was only thirteen years of age, and from the spelling and the almost faultless grammatical expressions in his letters and compositions before he had reached manhood. and from his skill in accounts, that he had not only remarkable native powers, but had been the subject of careful and thorough training. Credit for this is given to his village teacher. Master John Fowle, a graduate of Harvard
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College in 1747, a man of unusually good reputation in this line of work. The handwrit- ing of Rumford was clear, strong and elegant in his youth, and it remained so through his life, and it has been asserted that the mode of instruction through which young Rumford and his contemporaries passed afforded a superior training with more signal results than was realized later under more elaborate provisions for elementary education. Rumford indicated from his earliest years an intense mental incli- nation for things scientific in their nature, and showed a particular ardor for mathematics, and his leisure was devoted to the manufacture of ingenious mechanical contrivances leading early in his career to an interest in the deeper principles of mechanics and natural philos- ophy, as it was then understood.
It is said of him that he was for a time a pupil in a school at Byfield, under the charge of a relative ; that he was, when eleven years old, put under the care of an able teacher in Medford, named Hill; that in 1766 he was apprenticed to a Mr. John Appleton, of Salem, an importer of foreign goods, and a bill for goods bought from his store and receipted by Rumford when he was only fourteen years old is remarkable for grace of penmanship. mer- cantile style, and business-like signature. But his career in Salem is to be treated separately, and we pass on to a later date in Woburn.
In 1771 young Rumford began the study of medicine with Dr. John Hay, of Woburn. He appears to have been a boarder in his house from December 15, 1770, to June 15, 1772. Dr. Hay lived on the estate now known as the Kimball estate, 732 Main street, Central Square, and his house at a later date was called the "Black House," and was standing as late as 1854. Dr. Hay returned about 1780 to his native town of Reading. where his father was also a physician. While boarding at Dr. Hay's, Rumford attended Mr. Winthrop's lectures at Cambridge (1771) and from December 9, 1771, to February 5, 1772. he was keeping school at Wilmington. In March and April, 1772, he was doing the same. And in June, 1772, he was absent for the part of a week at Bradford, probably arranging for work of a similar kind. as he is credited with having been a teacher there.
The following is an account of the division of his time while a student at Dr. Hays: "From eleven at night to six in the morning, sleep. At six, arise, and wash my hands and face. From six to eight, morning, exercise one-half and study one-half the time. Eight to ten A. M.,
breakfast, attend prayers. From ten to twelve, study all the time. From twelve to one, dine. From one to four, study constantly. From four to five, relieve my mind by some diversions or exercises. From five till bedtime, follow what my inclination leads me, whether it be to go abroad, or stay at home and read either anatomy, physic, or chemistry, or any book I want to peruse." His studies while at Dr. Hay's were divided into days. The list was anatomy, physic, surgery, chemistry and the materia medica.
The above data are taken from minutes made by Rumford himself at the time. Through the influence of Baldwin he obtained with his friend the privilege of attending Professor Winthrop's lectures at Cambridge, neither young man being a regular student at the col- lege there. It is said that they walked to and from the place to their homes at Woburn, and were in the habit of repeating the experiments witnessed. with rude apparatus of their own contrivance, at their homes afterward.
The exact time when Rumford taught school in Bradford is not definitely stated, but it was some time in the year 1772. His experience here led to his being appointed in the same year to the mastership of a school in Concord, New Hampshire, then known as a town by the name of Rumford; but his arrival there was followed by his speedy marriage.
It is our intention to ignore the various traditions which have befogged the actions of Count Rumford in Woburn about the time of the battle of Lexington and Concord, April 19. 1775, and present only an extract from a letter of that time which has a very pointed reference to him in connection with his arrest on that date, while he was at his mother Pierce's house in North Woburn, by a military company of the town when he was confined there by an ill- ness, probably the one he mentions in his letter of October 1, 1775, which we have quoted elsewhere. He said. "I came out of Boston a few days before the affair at Lexington." hav- ing "enjoyed, since I left Boston a very indif- ferent share of health." It is supposed then that he took refuge at his mother's, and was ill there on the day of April 19, as before hinted. The quotation from the other letter mentioned is here presented. It is an auto- graph letter from Major Josiah Johnson to James Fowle. Esq., dated September 9. 1775. both influential men of middle life in the then town of Woburn :"
"The town of Woburn upon the shortest notice mustered and marched 180 brave men.
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well equipped, for the assistance and relief of their distressed brethren at Concord, whither the Ministerial troops had stolen their march for the destruction of our magazine there de- posited. whose heroic deeds under the prudent conduct of Captain Jonathan Fox and others (on the emergency of the 19th of April last ) greatly added to the glorious achievements of that memorable day. Though we don't find this Captain Fox justly charged with the illboding conduct of promoting the escape of a supposed enemy that day captivated and committed to safekeeping by the heroism of others, whose worthy deeds justly entitled them to a much better fortune ; a fact notori- ously regretted."*
His release is credited and probably cor- rectly to the influence of his friend Baldwin. He had his trial later. Woburn is only five miles from Lexington, and hesitation on the part of any man to go to the field on Lexing- ton's battle-day was, under the excitement which prevailed, a dangerous thing to display. It is commonly believed that every able-bodied Woburn man was present in the engagement. and the excuses of the few left, who did not go, were rigidly inquired into, and Rumford's case among the rest. The appearance of a militia company before his house on the even- ing of that day and its object, is clearly ex- plained by the letter which we have quoted. Rumford was indeed favored by having influ- ential friends throughout the whole of his career.
In a letter written from Woburn, May 11. 1775, he says, "Since Mrs. Thompson has been at Woburn she has been very unwell. which has prevented her coming to Concord this week as was proposed." On May 16, fol- lowing, he was arrested in Woburn, and his trial was appointed at the meeting-house in the first parish of that town, on Thursday, May 18, at two P. M. Baldwin states in his diary that Rumford was taken up, as a Tory, but nothing was found against him, and the court adjourned to the following Monday. The final action in his case is preserved by his friend Baldwin, in words that show that the Woburn committee having charge of the case reported that they did not find in any one instance that the accused had shown a "disposition unfriend- ly to American Liberty," but that his general behavior had "evinced the direct contrary."
( Dated "Woburn, in the Province of Massa- chusetts Bay, 29th May. 1775").
It appears after his release that Rumford re- mained in this vicinity. On June 4, 1775, he viewed the military works at Boston, in com- pany with Baldwin (then an American major ) from Lechmere's Point, Cambridge, and on June 13 Baldwin reports that "Major Thomp- son went to Woburn." He was still in this vicinity in August, 1775. In that month he decided to quit the country. He made all his arrangements with deliberate preparation. After making his decision he remained two months in and about Woburn, and on October 13. 1775, accompanied by his stepbrother, Josiah Pierce, he started from Woburn in a country vehicle. and drove near to the bounds of the province, on the shore of the Narragan- sett Bay, whence young Pierce returned. Rumford was then taken by a boat on board the "Scarborough," a British frigate which lay in the harbor of Newport.
The following apology for his unpopularity among the Americans at the opening of the Revolutionary War was written about 1847 by a Scotchman, and published in "Chambers Miscellany." (X. 5). His position comes as near the truth as we shall ever know.
"The truth," says this writer, "seems to be that not only was Thompson, as a man in comfortable circumstances, was fond of the consideration and opportunities of enjoyment which they afforded him, averse to any dis- turbance, such as a war between the colonies and the mother country would cause, but that his constitution and temperament, his liking for calm intellectual pursuits, disqualified him from taking part in political agitation. Many men who have distinguished themselves in lit- erature and science have, as a matter of prin- ciple, kept themselves aloof from the contro- versies and political dissensions of their time, alleging that, however important such ques- tions might be, it was not in discussing them that their powers could be employed to most advantage. In the case of Thompson, how- ever, who as yet had not begun to lay claim to the character of a man devoted to scien- tific pursuits, his countrymen thought, not al- together unreasonably, that they had grounds of complaint. What employment was he en- gaged in, that he ought to be exempted from the duty of a citizen-that of taking interest in public affairs? So, probably, the most can- did and considerate of the American patriots reasoned : and as for the great mass of the
*In the "Journals of the Provincial Congress is preserved a petition of Count Rumford in reference to his trial at Woburn in May. 1775. It contains nothing new in idea, however, beyond what we present.
i-6
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populace. they condemned him in the usual summary manner in which the public judges."
Colonel Baldwin, his intimate friend, writ- ing in 1805, confirms the idea of his indiffer- ence: "From this general view of the con- duct of Major Thompson and his manner of leaving America, some may have received un favorable impressions of his character. But he had never made politics his study and never perhaps seriously considered the origin and progress of the contest; and if he sought for employment against his countrymen, he had sufficient opportunities of being gratified."*
AT SALEM .-- Rumford as a youth was ap- prenticed to a merchant in Salem, October 14, 1766. He lived in his master's family as a member of the household. It was here, it is said, that he was interested in playing the fiddle, an instrument upon which he was a skillful performer. Here he continued until about October, 1769. An enlightened minis- ter, the Rev. Thomas Barnard, gave him his friendship and encouragement. As he says, himself. "The father of one of my compan- ions, a very respectable minister, and, besides, very enlightened (by name Barnard ) gave me his friendship, and of his own prompting, undertook to instruct me. He taught me alge- bra, geometry, astronomy, and even the higher mathematics. Before the age of fourteen, I had made sufficient progress in this class of studies to be able without his aid, and even without his knowledge, to calculate and trace rightly the elements of a solar eclipse. We ob- served it together, and my computation was correct within four seconds. 1 shall never forget the intense pleasure which this success afforded me, nor the praises which it drew from him. I had been destined for trade, but after a short trial my thirst for knowledge became inextinguishable, and I could not ap-
*The reader is referred to the life by Professor Renwick (Spark's Biographies) for many particu- lars regarding Rumford's life in Woburn and Salem, based apparently on the statements in the manuscript of Josiah Pierce (half-brother) already referred to in a previous note. These statements are repeated in the article on Count Rumford in the "Chambers Miscellany," published about 1847. While very interesting we have omitted them here, because of their evidently overcolored and tradi- tionary character. One of them was, and the truth of it we do not deny, that the Woburn meeting- house was crowded to its very doors at the time his trial was held. This meeting-house then stood on the present Woburn Common, and was within a short distance of the spot where Rumford's admir- able statue now stands.
Renwick's work when compared with Rumford's memoranda presented in the latter work of Ellis. shows many inaccuracies in dates, though his statements are in other respects correct. This refers to statements of fact regarding the events of his life in America. It is supposed that Renwick used the important part of the Pierce manuscript and the Baldwin article of 1805, which he refers to.
ply myself to anything but my favorite objects of study."
While in Salem he had permission to make occasional visits to Woburn, and walked one night from there to show his friend Baldwin parts of a machine he had made in the direc- tion of solving the principle of "perpetual motion." His services to his employer at Salem beoming less necessary, owing to the obstructions imposed upon trade before the opening of the Revolutionary War, he was sent to Boston and apprenticed to a similar business to that he had been at Salem.
IN BOSTON .- In Boston he was placed as an apprentice clerk with a Mr. Hopestill Capen, a dry-goods dealer. This was in the autumn of 1769. Here he attended a French evening school for the purpose of learning that lan- guage, but his stay in Boston was short, owing to the falling off in business caused by the de- pression of the times. Dr. Ellis gives a num- ber of instances of Rumford's precocity during the period of his stay in Salem and Boston, but they are mostly of a character of which Rumford would be ashamed in his after life .*
AT CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE .- An im- mature lad of nineteen, Rumford married a wealthy widow of thirty-three. She had been married when about thirty to an elderly bache- lor of about sixty. She was the daughter of a clergyman, and the facts of their union have been given in the genealogy preceding this article. The widow's husband died December 21, 1771. The date of her second marriage is said to have been about November, 1772, and it is also related that his mother's consent was obtained in the course of a rather sensational journey on the part of the couple to her abode in Woburn. But this is a matter of tradition. Something more definite is this: His friend Baldwin writes of him at this period as a person of a "fine manly make and figure, near- ly six feet in height, of handsome features, bright blue eyes, and dark auburn hair." He seems to have been satisfactory to his Concord friends as a teacher, and in a letter from there to his mother in Woburn he writes, "I have had 106 scholars at my school, but only have seventy at once."
Owing to the influence and activity of his wife, Rumford soon shone in New Hampshire colonial society, and at a military review at
*These incidents are also related with even more fullness of detail by Renwick. The most important was his narrow escape from serious injury and the loss of his life in an explosion of gunpowder with which he was preparing some fireworks for a cele- bration.
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Dover, ten miles from Portsmouth, at which both were present, on the 13th of November. 1772, he attracted the attention of the royal governor, to whom he was introduced, and on the following day was a guest at his table. The result was a commission as major in the militia, conferred by the governor on the fu- ture Count. This commission was bestowed on Rumford over the heads of men in the line of promotion, and resulted, for political and military reasons. in his becoming the subject of jealous feeling and hostile criticism. So far as is known he was at that time devoid of both military knowledge and experience. It was not so afterwards. And whatever may be said, it was the opinion of the men of that day that Rumford from the outset of his military career was at heart a loyalist : and Went- worth, the governor to whom he was indebted for his rise to military rank, was the last royal governor of New Hampshire. How much ( and doubtless it was much) feminine influ- ence may have helped to secure his elevation to office is not determined. It is evident to the most superficial observer that his wife's in- Anence was a potent factor in bringing about the result. Her father and brother were staunch supporters of the American side in the Revolution, and it is likely her notions afterwards were never again urged either on one side or the other of the controversy.
For a time, about 1773. Rumford became a gentleman farmer on his wife's estate. He had broad acres to till and employed many laborers. To Baldwin he wrote in the middle of July, 1773, "I am engaged in husbandry." In August, 1774, he wrote: "I have been ex- tremely busy this summer, or I should have given myself the pleasure of coming to see you."
At Concord, New Hampshire, where his family connections were the most powerful set among the inhabitants, Rumford was pro- tected for a time by their influence. However, by the people at large he was distrusted. He was summoned before a committee at Concord in the summer of 1774 to answer to the suis- picion of "being unfriendly to the cause of Liberty," and he positively denied the charge. and challenged proof. No proceeding ensued against him, and he was discharged. In No- vember, 1774, a mob gathered round his dwel- ling and demanded his appearance. Had Rumford been within he would have been foully dealt with. But he had secretly left Concord just before. His wife and her brother, Colonel Walker, came forth and as-
sured the mob that her husband was not in town, and the gathering dispersed.
Rumford thought it was to be only a tem- porary separation from the place. His wife and infant child were with him afterwards at Woburn and Boston, but his separation from Concord was perpetual. He found himself unsafe at Woburn, and next sought safety in Charlestown, and on his own admission he boarded in Boston ( the seat of a British army ) until a few days before the 19th of April, 1775. These facts are obtained from an inter- esting letter of Rumford's, in which, seeking for his goods, he gives incidentally an account of his movements at the beginning of the Revolution. Separating these facts from the vagaries of tradition, one gets a much clearer idea of the truth.
October 1, 1775. "I came out of Boston a few days before the affair at Lexington on the 19th April, and have since not been able to return. When I left the town I little imagined that a return would be thus difficult, or, rather impossible, and therefore took no care to pro- vide for such a contingency. I can- not conclude without informing you that since 1 left Boston I have enjoyed but a very in- different share of health. Since the 12th of August I have been confined to my room the greatest part of the time, and this is the nineteenth day since 1 have had a settled fever upon me, which I fear is not come to a crisis yet. I have not been out of the Province of Massachusetts Bay since I saw you. Mrs. Thompson and little Sally* were with me during the month of May, since which time I have not had the pleasure of seeing either of them.'
The events in Rumford's life after the few days before the 19th of April, 1775, when the struggle actually began which separated the United States of America from the English government, are continued under the heading "Woburn" in this article.
GREAT BRITAIN .- After boarding a British frigate in the harbor of Newport, Rumford sailed in her to Boston, and remained there until the evacuation of that town by the British forces, of which event he was the bearcr of tidings to England. Henceforward to the end of the war he was in the service of the British government. The intelligence of the evacua- tion was made public in London in May, 1776, but it is supposed that through Rumford's agency the event had been known to the gov- ernment before. There will be no further
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