Life of Count Rumford. 5 



here may have come from York, in England, though 

 the fact is not on record. His first paternal ancestor, 

 James Thompson, was of Winthrop's company, and at 

 the age of thirty-seven was in Charlestown, in 1630. 

 He was one of the first settlers of that portion of the 

 original bounds of the town which, running more than 

 ten miles up into the country, was soon set off as a 

 separate precinct under the name of Woburn. Here 

 the family with numerous descendants and branches 

 continued till the birth of our subject, as many that 

 sprung from the first comer do to this day. He him- 

 self was a man of worth, position, and trust in an 

 arduous enterprise, being one of the "selectmen" of 

 the town, and he lived nearly to the age of ninety. 



Captain Ebenezer Thompson and Hannah Convers 

 were the grandparents, Benjamin Thompson and Ruth 

 Sirnonds were the father and mother, of our subject; the 

 mother being the daughter of an officer who performed 

 distinguished service in the French and Indian War, 

 which was in progress at the time of the birth of his 

 eminent grandson. The parents were married in 1752, 

 and went to live at the house of Captain Ebenezer 

 Thompson. Here, under his grandfather's roof, the 

 future Count Rumford was born, March 26, 1753, in 

 the west end of the strong and substantial farm-house 

 which is still standing a few rods south of the meeting- 



. D D 



house in North Woburn. This house was, till quite 

 recently, occupied by the Count's first cousin, the widow 

 of Willard Jones.* 



The father of our subject died November 7, 1754, in 

 his twenty-sixth year, leaving his wife and her child, 

 hardly twenty months old, to the care and support of 



* Sewall's History of Woburn, p. 390, &c. 



