2io Life of Count Rumford. 



Thus the tone and language in which Count Rum- 

 ford is found whether to continue or to renew his 

 intercourse with his family and friends here, in the first 

 of his communications after the war which has been 

 preserved, would not indicate even that the intercourse 

 had been indifferently or passionately suspended ; for 

 they are characterized by affection, and imply a full 

 knowledge of matters which might be expected to in- 

 terest him. He seems to take up again with the 

 strongest natural feeling the relationships of son and 

 father, as will abundantly appear. 



The Count's honored and revered father-in-law, the 

 Rev. Timothy Walker, had, as we have seen, received 

 from him, in tender terms, the charge of wife and infant 

 when the young parent hurriedly and secretly went from 

 his home to go he hardly knew whither nor for how 

 long an absence. That venerable clergyman, the chief 

 man in patriotism and in common esteem in Concord, 

 died, as I have said, after a ministry of fifty-two years, 

 on September 2, 1782. His daughter, the wife of 

 Count Rumford, lived to know of her husband's great 

 fame and advancement, and died January 19, 1792, 

 aged fifty-two years. Her abundant property and her 

 continuance in her own comfortable home secured her 

 every worldly advantage. Frequent entries in Colonel 

 Baldwin's diary refer to visits at his home in Woburn, 

 made for months at a time, by Sally Thompson, as 

 the daughter was familiarly called, and to the payment 

 to her of the proceeds of bills of exchange for con- 

 siderable amounts sent to her by her father. In the 

 diary, under date of January 29, 1796, is the follow- 

 ing : " Friday, ten o'clock, Sally Thompson, daughter 

 of Sir Benjamin Thompson, sailed from Boston in 



