Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10.djvu/152

 THOMPSON

THOMPSON

grand jury, a complimentary letter from the vice- roy of Ireland, and election to the Irish Royal Acailemy and Society of Arts. While in England, Count Riunford was joined by his daughter, Sarah Thompson, who was then twenty-two years of age, her mother liaving died Jan. 19, 179.?, at Rumford, N.H. She was received at the court of ^lunich as a countess, and pensioned by the elector. Count Rumford was recalled to Munich as head of the Council of Regency, with absolute powers, and chief in command of the Bavarian army by reason of the war then waging between Austria and France, accomplishing the withdrawal of both armies from the city without involving the Bava- rian governments in the war. His health again compelled him to leave Bavaria in 1798, and he was appointed Bavarian minister to England, but as he was a British subject he was not accepted. The Countess Sarah returned to America about this time, and Count Rumford also thought seri- ously of going back to his native country, and to that end engaged in correspondence with Rufus King, U.S. minister in England, as to the pos- sibility of a repeal of legal disabilities in his favor, should he present himself, which resulted in a cordial acknowledgment from President Adams of his achievements, and the choice of the offices of lieutenant and inspector of artillery or engineer and superintendent of the Military academy, an offer of which he did not avail him- self, becoming involved in the founding of the Royal Institution at London in 1799, and serving as its secretary until he resumed his residence on the continent in May, 1802. Meanwhile his pa- tron, Charles Theodore, had died, and his succes- sor being disinclined to reinstate Count Rumford in his former place of eminence, he made his home iu Paris, where he was married, Oct. 2-1, 1805. to Marie Anne Pierset Paulze, widow of Lavoisier, the celebrated chemist. After their separation in 1809 his wife retained possession of their city mansion, and he retired to a villa in Auteuil, where his daughter joined him, and where; occupied with philosophical experiments and in the composition of essays on scientific subjects, he passed the remainder of his life. Count Rumford was a member of the academies of Munich and Mannheim. He gave $•'5,000 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and also to the Royal society of London, for the es- tablishment of a Rumford medal to be awarded for the most valuable practical investigations in light and heat, and was himself the first recipient of the medal from the Royal society. With his daughter, he founded the Rolfe and Rumford asylums in Concord, N.H.. Countess of Rumford, who died in Concord in \>i')2, bf-qucathing $1.5,000 to the New Hampshire Asylum for the Insane, and other liberal sums to public charities. In his

will Count Rumford left to Harvard college a sum for the founding of the Rumford professorship and lectureship on the application of science to the useful arts, and his collection of apparatus, specimens and original models with £1,000 to the Royal Institution in London. In ad(litit)n to his monument in tiie English Garden at Munich, he is also commemorated by a bronze statue in its principal .street, and by a portrait in the Royal Society's rooms in London, and one at Harvard uni- versity, Cambridge, Mass. His name in Class H, Scientists, received nineteen votes for a place in the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, New Yoik university, October, 1900, and was fifth in the class of nineteen names suggested. He is the author of: Essays, Political, Economical and Pldloso})})- ical (3 vols., London, 1796; Vol. IV., 1802; Amer- ican ed., 1798-1804); many of which were origin- ally published as pamphlets in French, English and German, and Rmnford's Complete Works, published posthumously (Boston, 1870-75), with a memoir of the author by George E. Ellis, and containing the correspondence of his daughter, Sarah Thompson. His life was also written by James Renwick, in Sjoarks's " American Biogra- phy " (1845). Count Rumford died in Auteuil, France, Aug. 25, 1814.

THOMPSON, Charles Oliver, educator, was born at East Windsor Hill, Conn., Sept. 25, 1836; son of the Rev. William (q.v.) and Eliza Welles (Butler) Thompson. He prepared for college under Dr. Paul Ansel Chadbourne (q.v.); was graduated from Dartmoutii college, A.B., 1858, A.M., 1861, and was principal of the Caledonia County academy, afterwards known as Peacham academy, Vt., 1858-64, with the exception of a few months in 1860, when he was engaged as a civil engineer at Piermont, N.Y. He was married, May 14, 1862, to Maria, daughter of Dr. Horace and Elizabeth (Dickinson) Goodrich of Ware, Mass. He was principal of the Cotting High school, Ar- lington, Mass., 1804-68, meanwhile studying chem- istry at Harvard imiversity, and in 1808 he be- came the first principal of the Worcester (Mass.) Free Institute of Industrial Science, a position he held until 1882, together with the professor- ship of chemistry. In preparation for the work of organizing the Institute (the name being changed to the Worcester Polyteciniic school during his administration), which was one of the first of its kind in the United States, he spent several months in Europe studying methods of technical education. He devised and developed the method of instruction in mechanical engin- eering, which consists in combining the instruc- tion in the theoretic branches of the art with practical work in machine shops, operated under the supervision of the institution, but conducted on strictly business and commercial principles in