the ocean, to illustrate the broad sympathies of the man who founded them.
The count died at Auteuil, near Paris, Aug. 21, 1814, in his sixty -second year, where his remains are entombed. His first wife died the year after he received his high title, and was buried in Concord by the side of her first husband, Col. Rolfe. Their graves adjoin the plat which contains the ashes of Sarah, Countess of Rumford, but there is no tombstone erected to their memory.
During the life of her grandmother, the countess often visited the birthplace of her father, and quite a portion of her childhood was passed in North Woburn. The house in which the count first saw the light of day still stands, and is now the property of the Rumford Historical Society. Very noteworthy is it that the man himself, not his inherited wealth,—for he never enjoyed it,—is entitled to all the praise of his achievements, honors, and money gains.
The first passage of the countess across the Atlantic, in 1796, occupied nearly as many weeks as her last contemplated trip (in 1852) would have taken days. When she joined her father in London, he and all his friends gave her a cordial welcome; though he and they were in person strangers to her, knowing them only by name and correspondence. But her father had access to the best society, and was literally famous for his deeds and writings. In Munich she found a Bavarian marble and freestone memorial erected to his honor in the English Gardens he had planned, and that the hearts of thousands pulsed with joy on his return. His public reception was a triumph. Even the inmates of the workhouses praised him, as well as the soldiers, for the improvements he had made for them. Thus the countess soon learned to love the Germans for their admiration of her father; to respect the English for the honor they had done him, and for the generous pension which they regularly paid; and she thoroughly enjoyed "the graceful good-humor of the French:" hence the years she passed in Paris, and her protracted visits to London. With her father she "did" the Continent and visited Italy. Like him, also, she early became interested in devising generous things for the poor. In March, 1797, writes the count, "My daughter, desirous of celebrating my birthday in a manner which she thought would be pleasing to me, went privately to the House of Industry, and choosing out half a dozen of the most industrious little boys of eight and ten years of age, and as many girls, dressed them new from hand to foot, in the uniform of that public establishment, at her own expense, and dressing herself in white, early in the morning of my birthday led them into my room and presented them to me, when I was at breakfast. I was so much affected by this proof of her affection for me, and by the lively pleasure that she enjoyed in it, that I resolved it should not be forgotten." Immediately he formed a plan for perpetuating the remembrance of this incident, and for renewing the pleasure that it gave. He made his daughter a present of two thousand dollars in American stocks, in order that she might forever repeat a like benefaction on behalf of the poor children of her native town, Concord. Thus commenced the foundation of the fund for the Rolfe and Rumford Asylum in that city, to which other endowments were subsequently made. And no good deed which the count and his daughter ever did
