join him there, which she did in January, 1799, being in her twenty-second year. Her mother had already died, Jan. 19, 1792, after a semi-widowhood of near sixteen years. Her husband bade her adieu in Woburn, Oct. 13, 1775, when he set out for Narragansett Bay and the British frigate, then in the harbor of Newport. Frequent letters show that he had the heart of a man for the wife of his youth.
Already had he been made a major by Gov. Wentworth of New Hampshire. On his arrival in England he was soon employed as under secretary to Lord George Germaine, and then became by royal appointment a colonel of his Majesty's forces. In such official capacity he returned to this country, near the close of the war, and then back to England; was allowed half pay as pension for his services to the king, and subsequently was knighted by his royal master. This put him in comfortable circumstances as to income. But, in the mean time, his goods and property in this country had been forfeited; even his personal effects, which he had invoked the Rev. Samuel Parker of Trinity Church, Boston, to protect, including his most valuable papers, which, as he says, were of "the greatest consequence" to him, were saved only by the efforts of that gentleman. We have Major Thompson's imploring letter to him, but not the reply of Rev. Mr. Parker. This clergyman was afterward known as the Rev. Dr. Parker, and father of the wife of Rev. Dr. Edson of Lowell, Mass.
In 1791 Sir Benjamin Thompson was raised to the dignity of Count of the Holy Roman Empire by his friend and patron the Elector, who, during the interval between the death of the Emperor Joseph and the coronation of Leopold II., reigned as vicar. And in 1797 the Elector received his daughter Sarah as a countess of the empire, and allowed her to receive one-half of her father's pension, with permission to reside wherever she might choose. The half pension was worth a thousand dollars annually: so that to the daughter her title was not an empty sound, but the reward conferred upon her father for his merits and talents. He had labored assiduously for the good of mankind: in the preparation of foods, soups, and various cooking; in the use of fuel and lamps, baths, and chimneys; in heating-appliances of fire and steam; for the comfort of soldiers in camp and in barracks, giving them employment, better food, and better pay; in houses of industry and instruction for preventing mendicity, and furnishing work to the idle; in schemes of humanity and economy for improving the condition of the poor; in founding prizes for the encouragement of scientific research, one in England and one in Harvard. His bequests to the latter college now amount to more than fifty thousand dollars in value. Americans may be proud to remember that the Royal Institution of Great Britain (1799) was founded, and for some time managed, by a son of Massachusetts, Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, who assumed that name because it was the ancient name of the town where his wife and daughter were born. In consideration of plans and endeavors for benefiting the poorer classes, Rumford was largely in advance of his age. While Rumford prizes and professorships will ever be remembered, the Rumford memorials at Munich, and the Rolfe and Rumford Asylum at Concord, will never be forgotten. Both and all are of lasting benefit to mankind, on both sides
