Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/384

 348 THE GRANITE MONTHLY.

About this time there came to Concord, from Woburn, Mass., a young man by the name of Benjamin Thompson. Tliouyh a mere youth in years, he was wonderfully matured in mind. He was a good scholar, and developed hand- somely in personal appearance. He was engaged at once as the teacher of Rumford Academy.

Thompson was a philosopher by nature, and nothing could divert him from his philosophical researches and mechanical pursuits. Handy with tools and full of inventive genius, he spent his spare time in all sorts of experiments on subjects suggested by his reading. Like Watt with his tea-kettle explosion, he had his early experimentive accident. While a clerk in a store at Salem, he volunteered to make fire-works to honor the triumph of the patriots ; in the attempt his mixture blew up and he was carried from the scene seriously in- jured. After he recovered from this injury, having lost his place by the closing of the store, he went to Boston, where his unoccupied time was improved by attending a course of scientific lectures at Harvard College. This privilege was afforded him free, and long after he made grateful return by bequeathing to the college the endowment of a professorship of the useful arts. When he came to Rumford he was only eighteen years old.

At the well known Walker house, upon the bank of Horse-shoe pond, and beautifully inclosed w idi lofty elms, where resided Parson W^alker, and which was then as now a mansion where were dispensed the hospitalities of a gentle- man and a scholar to all well disposed strangers, Benjamin Thompson was a welcome guest. The position and address of Thompson were such as to give him entrance to any house, and his superior intelligence was soon discovered by the venerable clergyman. Between the two a warm friendship grew up. Nor was the young school master less a favorite with those of his own age. The proud and haughty demeanor of which, in after life, he was accused, was not noticeable at this period. Naturally gay and fond of society, he entered into all the manly sports of the time while at Concord. He was the most ex- pert skater and swimmer among the young men. At the social evening parties he was a favorite. With his experiments in chemistry and philosophy, his feats of swimming and skating upon the Merrimack, and Horse-shoe pond, his genial and engaging manners at all times and places, he for a time was very popular among old and young at Rumford.

At Mr. Walker's Thompson often met the young widow, Mrs. Rolfe. She was now in the prime of her beauty, and a creature for a young man to wor- ship. She had other attractions beside her good looks and accomplishments. Owner of an estate valued at ^4000 — $So,ooo of our money, and mistress oi a great household, she had no lack of suitors. Nor was she averse to mar- riage, but she looked with favoring eyes upon no one but the young teacher, who, with his frank, open manners, handsome form, and manly accomplish- ments, had completely won her heart. They married sometime before Jan- uary, 1773, at Parson Walker's house, and the poor school-master became the richest patrician in Rumford.

Mr. and Mrs. Thompson inaugurated a style of living at the Rumford house that completely threw in the shade any thing of the kind previously. Tradition reports that they kept twenty slaves and servants ; that a fat ox was often butchered once a week ; and that a dozen saddle and carriage horses were kept in the stables to accommodate the master and mistress and their guests. When they went abroad they rode in a curricle drawn by two horses, by far the most expensive turn-out then in Concord.

It was while attending a military review, at Dover, that Thompson attracted the attention of Governor Wentworth. These military parades, with their round of levees, balls and parties, were the center of all the fashion in those days.

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