Life of Count Rumford. \ \ 



epithet, and have evidence that disposes of the other 

 charge as purely fictitious. Josiah Pierce, Jr., appears 

 to have been a kind and faithful husband, and, as has 

 been said, he took his wife's child with her to a new 

 home. They had afterwards four children. Her first 

 child by this new husband, Josiah Pierce, jd, about 

 four years younger than Benjamin Thompson, grew 

 up with him as a playmate, and in after life corre- 

 sponded with him. The son of this half-brother of 

 Thompson, the Hon. Josiah Pierce, of Gorham, Me., 

 had heard nothing from his father that would warrant an 

 imputation of the sort we are considering.* 



It was not usual among the self-respecting groups of 

 New England households, the staple of the thrifty 

 country towns of those days, where there was a minister 

 that had authority, where neighbors had mutual over- 

 sight, and the law and its officers had cognizance of 

 private relations now released from its control, it was 

 not usual that a fatherless child should be wronged in 

 property rights, or even in domestic privileges. Indeed, 

 so far was young Thompson from being neglected or 

 misused in his early years, that it seems from the facts 

 to be now related of his boyhood and apprenticeship, 

 he was, for one in his place, unusually favored by friends 

 and by fostering help. There were evidently many of 

 his kindred, and of those who were not of his kindred, 

 who were interested for him. It is to be considered, 



* In Volume XXXIII. of Silliman's American Journal of Science, &c., p. 21, is a 

 " Sketch of the early History of Count Rumford, in which some of the Mistakes of 

 Cuvier and others of his Biographers are corrected"; by John Johnston. Read before 

 the Natural History Society of the Wesleyan University, June 30, 1837. The writer 

 does correct some mistakes, but makes others. This article introduces a letter from 

 the Hon. Josiah Pierce, in which he says, " My grandmother (Rumford's mother) 

 lived in my father's house for seven years previous to het death, which occurred 

 June n, 1811." 



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