Life of Count Rumford. 43 



the Governor's at Portsmouth. Colonel Rolfe having 

 lived as a bachelor till he was about sixty years old, then 

 married Sarah, the daughter of the Rev. Timothy 

 Walker, she being at the time about thirty. Un- 

 fortunately, some of the interleaved almanacs in which 

 the good minister was in the habit of entering his official 



D 



acts and matters of church record have been lost, and 

 thus we are left in ignorance of some dates which would 

 interest us. The Concord town records say that Sarah 

 Walker was born October 6, 1739. She was married 

 to Colonel Rolfe in 1769. They had one son, after- 

 wards Colonel Paul Rolfe. The father died Decem- 

 ber 21, 1771, in his sixty-second year, leaving to his 

 widow and son a large estate. He built a fine house 

 at the so-called " Eleven Lots," since known as the 

 Rolfe House. It was here that his widow, as the wife 

 of Count Rumford, lived, and on the I9th of January, 

 1792, died at the age of fifty-two. 



When Benjamin Thompson went to Concord as a 

 teacher he was in the glory of his youth, not having 

 yet reached manhood. His friend Baldwin describes 

 him as of a fine manly make and figure, nearly six feet 

 in height, of handsome features, bright blue eyes, and 

 dark auburn hair. He had the manners and polish 

 of a gentleman, with fascinating ways, and an ability 

 to make himself agreeable. So diligently, too, had he 

 used his opportunities of culture and reading that he 

 might well have shined even in a circle socially more ex- 

 acting than that to which he was now introduced. We 

 may anticipate here the conclusion to which the review 

 of his whole career will lead us, that, as boy or man, 

 he was never one to allow an opportunity of advance- 

 ment to escape him. He seems to have given satisfac- 



