4 Life of Count Rumford. 



before me in all its original glory and beauty, with its 

 rich adornments, and the proper attestations of Garter 

 and Clarenceux kings in heraldry, and their well-pro- 

 tected seals, enclosed in tin casings. The Knight him- 

 self must have furnished the information written on that 

 flowery parchment. 



In it he is described as "Son of Benjamin Thomp- 

 son, late of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, in New 

 England, Gent: deceased, and as of one of the most 

 ancient families in North America; that an island which 

 belonged to his ancestors at the entrance of Boston Har- 

 bor, near where the first New England settlement was 

 made, still bears his name; that his ancestors have ever 

 lived in reputable situations in that country where he 

 was born, and have hitherto used the arms of the ancient 

 and respectable family of Thompson, of the county of 

 York, from a constant tradition that they derived their 

 descent from that source," &c. 



The new knight was mistaken in this account of 

 himself, so far as relates to the man whose name is still 

 borne by the island in our harbor. That name was de- 

 rived from one David Thompson, whom the first charter 

 colonists to our bay found already seated here, and who 

 was regarded as an interloper. He belonged to a mys- 

 terious class of men, described as the " Old Planters," 

 who occupied many of the headlands and some of the 

 islands of the bay, and could show no rights of posses- 

 sion. This Thompson died in Dorchester before 1638, 

 leaving an infant son. 



Before the son of this Thompson had grown to man- 

 hood, indeed almost as soon as we hear of the father, 

 the ancestors of the subject of this memoir were already 

 in occupancy on the main-land. The head of the family 



