Part 8 (1/2)
COUNT RUMFORD.
Benjamin Thompson, like Franklin, was a native of Ma.s.sachusetts, his ancestors for several generations having been yeomen in that province, and descendants of the first colonists of the Bay. In the diploma of arms granted him when he was knighted by George III., he is described as ”son of Benjamin Thompson, late of the province of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, in New England, gent.” He was born in the house of his grandfather, Ebenezer Thompson, at Woburn, Ma.s.sachusetts, on March 26, 1753. His father died at the age of twenty-six, on November 7, 1754, leaving the infant Benjamin and his mother to the care of the grandparents. The widow married Josiah Pierce, junior, in March, 1756, and with her child, now a boy of three, went to live in a house but a short distance from her former residence.
Young Thompson appears to have received a sound elementary education at the village school. From some remarks made by him in after years to his friend, M. Pictet, it has been inferred that he did not receive very kind treatment at the hands of his stepfather. It is clear, however, that the most affectionate relations.h.i.+ps always obtained between him and his mother, and the latter appears to have had no cause to complain of the treatment she received from her second husband, with whom she lived to a very good old age. That Thompson in early boyhood developed some tendencies which did not meet with ready sympathy from those around him is, however, equally clear. His guardians destined him for a farmer, like his ancestors, and his experiments in mechanics, which took up much of his playtime and in all probability not a few hours which should have been devoted to less interesting work, were not regarded as tending towards the end in view. Hence he was probably looked upon as ”indolent, flighty, and unpromising.” Later on he was sent to school in Byfield, and in 1764, at the age of eleven, ”was put under the tuition of Mr. Hill, an able teacher in Medford, a town adjoining Woburn.” At length, his friends having given up all hope of ever making a farmer of the boy, he was apprenticed, on October 14, 1766, to Mr. John Appleton, of Salem, an importer of British goods and dealer in miscellaneous articles. He lived with his master, and seems to have done his work in a manner satisfactory on the whole, but there is evidence that he would, during business hours, occupy his spare moments with mechanical contrivances, which he used to hide under the counter, and even ventured occasionally to practise on his fiddle in the store. He stayed with Mr. Appleton till the autumn of 1769, and during this time he attended the ministry of the Rev. Thomas Barnard. This gentleman seems to have taken great interest in the boy, and to have taught him mathematics, so that at the age of fifteen he was able ”to calculate an eclipse,”
and was delighted when the eclipse commenced within six seconds of his calculated time. Thompson, while an apprentice, showed a great faculty for drawing and designing, and used to carve devices for his friends on the handles of their knives or other implements. It was at this time he constructed an elaborate contrivance to produce perpetual motion, and on one evening it is said that he walked from Salem to Woburn, to show it to Loammi Baldwin, who was nine years older than himself, but his most intimate friend. Like many other devices designed for the same purpose, it had only one fault--it wouldn't go.
It was in 1769, while preparing fireworks for the illumination on the abolition of the Stamp Act, that Thompson was injured by a severe explosion as he was grinding his materials in a mortar. His note-book contained many directions for the manufacture of fireworks.
During Thompson's apprentices.h.i.+p those questions were agitating the public mind which finally had their outcome in the War of Independence. Mr. Appleton was one of those who signed the agreement refusing to import British goods, and this so affected the trade of the store that he had no further need for the apprentice. Hence it was that, in the autumn of 1769, Thompson went to Boston as apprentice-clerk in a dry goods store, but had to leave after a few months, through the depression in trade consequent on the non-importation agreement.
His note-book, containing the entries made at this time, comprised several comic sketches very well drawn, and a quant.i.ty of business memoranda which show that he was very systematic in keeping his accounts. His chief method of earning money, or rather of making up the ”Cr.” side of his accounts, was by cutting and cording wood. A series of entries made in July and August, 1771, show the expense he incurred in constructing an electrical machine. It is not easy to determine, from the list of items purchased, the character of the machine he constructed; but it is interesting to note that the price in America at that time of nitric acid was _2s. 6d._ per ounce; of lacquer, _40s._ per pint; of sh.e.l.lac, _5s._ per ounce; bra.s.s wire, _40s._ per pound; and iron wire, _1s. 3d._ per yard. The nature of the problems which occupied his thoughts during the last year or two of his business life are apparent in the following letters:--
Woburn, August 16, 1769.
Mr. Loammi Baldwin,
SIR,
Please to inform me in what manner fire operates upon clay to change the colour from the natural colour to red, and from red to black, etc.; and how it operates upon silver to change it to blue.
I am your most humble and obedient servant,
BENJAMIN THOMPSON
G.o.d save the king.
Woburn, August, 1769.
Mr. Loammi Baldwin,
SIR,
Please to give the nature, essence, beginning of existence, and rise of the wind in general, with the whole theory thereof, so as to be able to answer all questions relative thereto.
Yours,
BENJAMIN THOMPSON.
This was an extensive request, and the reply was probably not altogether satisfactory to the inquirer. On the back of the above letter was written:--
Woburn, August 15, 1769.
SIR,
There was but few beings (for inhabitants of this world) created before the airy element was; so it has not been transmitted down to us how the Great Creator formed the matter thereof. So I shall leave it till I am asked only the Natural Cause, and why it blows so many ways in so short a time as it does.
Thompson appears now to have given up business and commenced the study of medicine under Dr. Hay, to whom for a year and a half he paid forty s.h.i.+llings per week for his board. During this time he paid part of his expenses by keeping school for a few weeks consecutively at Wilmington and Bradford, and another part was paid by cords of wood.
His business capacity, as well as his dislike of ordinary work, is shown by some arrangements which he made for getting wood cut and corded at prices considerably below those at which he was himself paid for it. His note-book made at this time contains, besides business entries, several receipts for medicines and descriptions of surgical operations, in some cases ill.u.s.trated by sketches. In his work he was methodical and industrious, and the life of a medical student suited his genius far better than that of a clerk in a dry goods store. When teaching at Wilmington he seems to have attracted attention by the gymnastic performances with which he exercised both himself and his pupils. While a student with Dr. Hay, he attended some of the scientific lectures at Harvard College. The pleasure and profit which he derived from these lectures are sufficiently indicated by the fact that forty years afterwards he made the college his residuary legatee.
Thompson won such a reputation as a teacher during the few weeks that he taught in village schools in the course of his student life, that he received an invitation from Colonel Timothy Walker to come to Concord, in New Hamps.h.i.+re, on the Merrimack, and accept a permanent situation in a higher grade school. It was from this place that he afterwards took his t.i.tle, for the early name of Concord was Rumford, and the name was changed to Concord ”to mark the restoration of harmony after a long period of agitation as to its provincial jurisdiction and its relation with its neighbours.”