Can you guess these two famous cousins of mine? Both were named “Benjamin”.
Both men grew up within twelve miles of each other, near or
in Boston, Massachusetts. They were
contemporaries and lived through the American Revolution. One was considered a patriot, and one a
traitor.
Both men were scientists, and both invented household items
like stoves and forms of central heating.
Both were honored by European Scientific Societies. Both developed theories in thermodynamics.
Both men were philanthropists and endowed educational
pursuits in America.
Both men had illegitimate children.
Both men were statesmen and politicians. Both were honored in European royal
courts. One took a title of nobility,
and the other refused to take a title. Both
were also considered philosophers.
I don’t know if they ever met, and neither was related to
the other, but both are my first cousins, one 6 generations removed, the other
8 generations removed.
--------------------------------
Cousin #1, Benjamin Thompson AKA Count Rumford
If you have a can of Rumford Baking Powder on your shelf,
you have seen his silhouette. He was
born in Woburn, Massachusetts on 26 March 1753, the son of Benjamin Thompson
and Ruth Simonds. Ruth was the sister
to my 5x great grandfather, Caleb Simons (1720 – 1811). At age thirteen he was apprenticed to a
Salem merchant, where he learned mathematics and the physical sciences. When the merchant lost his business due to
the strained relations between Britain and the colonies, Benjamin Thompson
returned home to Woburn to work in a dry goods store. He eventually became a school teacher and
took a few classes at Harvard.
In 1772 he served as a British major in a New Hampshire
regiment. When the war broke out he
sided with the Loyalists. When the
British evacuated Boston in March 1776 he fled to England and left his New
Hampshire wife behind. He was elected to
the Royal Society in 1779. He returned
to America briefly during the war and was knighted in 1784. He served the Prince of Bavaria for the next
18 years (the Prince was a relative of King George of England).
He was made a count of the Holy Roman Empire, and took the
name “Count Rumford” for his former wife’s hometown (Rumford was the former
name of Concord, New Hampshire). He was married to the widow of the famous
chemist Lavoisier. He wrote the theory
that heat was a form of motion, and was the father of thermodynamics. The Rumford fireplace was one of the
inventions that changed chimney design forever after making rooms smoke
free. He endowed the Rumford chair of
science at Harvard and the Rumford Medals of the Royal Society and the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is
buried in the Auteuil Cemetery in Paris, France.
Cousin #2 Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin is the better known of the two
cousins. He was born on 6 January 1706
on Milk Street in Boston, the son of Josiah Franklin and Abiah Folger. Abiah was the sister of my 7x great
grandmother, Bethshua Folger (born about 1650 on the island of Nantucket). Benjamin Franklin was the youngest son of a
soapmaker. At age 12 he was apprenticed
to his brother James, a printer. At age 17
Benjamin Franklin ran away to Philadelphia to start a new life.
In Philadelphia he became a printer, and started a
subscription library in 1731. This
library continues today as The Library Company, a research library with rare
books and manuscripts. He became a Freemason and entered into a common-law
marriage with Deborah Read. He had an
illegitimate son, William, who would become the last Loyalist governor of New
Jersey.
Franklin became an author, first with Poor Richard’s Almanack, and then he became an inventor. He never patented his creations, which
included the lightning rod, the Franklin Stove, and bifocal glasses. He became postmaster, and founded the American
Philosophical Society. He was awarded
the Royal Society’s Copley Medal in 1753 and 1756 for his work with
electricity. In 1753 he was awarded
honorary degrees from both Harvard and Yale.
Politically active, he traveled to London many times as a
delegate for Pennsylvania against the Stamp Act. He became a delegate to the Second
Continental Congress and a member of the committee that drafted the Declaration
of Independence. Following the Revolution he was Ambassador to France and
minister to Sweden. In 1787 he was a
delegate to the Constitutional Convention.
Benjamin Franklin died 17 April 1790 in Philadelphia and
left 1,000 pounds to both Boston and Philadelphia for education to be used 200
years after his death. Philadelphia’s
portion had grown to more than $2 million and they spent it on scholarships,
while Boston’s portion grew to almost $5 million which was used to found the
Franklin Institute of Boston.
--------------------
--------------------
Copyright 2012, Heather Wilkinson Rojo
