102 



COUNT RUMFORD (SIR BENJAMIN THOMPSON), 

 LL.D., V.P.R.S., 



MEMBER OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE, ETC. 



Born March 26, 1753. Died Aug. 21, 1814. 



Benjamin Thompson, the founder of the Royal Institution, and 

 more generally known by the title of Count Rumford, which ho 

 afterwards acquired, was born at Woburn in Massachussets. His 

 ancestors appear to have been among the earliest colonists of this 

 district, and in all probability came originally from England. 



Thompson's father died while his son was a mere infant, and two 

 or three years afterwards his mother married a second husband, 

 Josiah Pierce, also a resident at Woburn. As soon as young 

 Thompson was able to learn his letters he was sent to the school of 

 his native town, kept by a Mr. John Fowle, where he remained 

 until his eleventh year, when he joined the school of a Mr. Hill at 

 Medford. Here Thompson made such advances in mathematics 

 and astronomy as to be able to calculate eclipses. At the age of 

 thirteen he was bound apprentice to Mr. John Appleby, a respecta- 

 ble merchant in Salem, the second town in point of size in I\l 

 chussets. His occupations with Mr. Appleby were principally those 

 of a clerk in the counting house, but he appears to have had sufficient 

 leisure to extend his reading in scientific subjects, and also to in- 

 dulge a taste, he began to exhibit, for designing and engraving. 

 At this time he was likewise occupied with a contrivance for solving 

 the famous problem of perpetual motion, but was ultimately made 

 to see the fallacy of his expectations, by the arguments of an old 

 friend and schoolfellow, Loammi Baldwin, who induced him to 

 attempt something more practicable though less magnificent. 



At this period, 1767, the differences between Great Britain and 

 her American colonies were beginning to assume a serious aspect, 

 and there ensued such a stagnation of trade at Salem and other 

 towns, that Mr. Appleby, having no further occasion for the services 

 of a clerk, was glad to give up to young Thompson his indentures, 

 and allow him to return to Woburn. For the next two or three 

 years Thompson's course of life seems to have been wavering and 

 undecided. At one time he appears to have had thoughts of enter- 

 ing the medical profession, for he remained during some months 

 under the tuition of Dr. Hay, a physician in Woburn, and en: 

 zealously upon the study of anatomy and physiology. 



In 1770, however, he resumed his mercantile avocations in 1 1n- 

 capacity of a clerk at a dry goods store at Boston, kept by a Mr. 

 Capen, and was thus engaged during the famous Hois which took 

 place in that town, on the attempt to land a cargo of tea from a 

 British vessel, contrary to a resolution of the colonists against 



