Count Rumford Birthplace Woburn, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA

Description

Count Rumford, born in this house as Benjamin Thompson in 1753, was one of the first native-born Americans to gain international recognition for his contributions to science when, in 1798, he disproved the prevailing caloric theory of the nature of heat. During the Revolution, he was a loyalist and a British spy. Abandoning his wife and child, he left Boston for England in 1775. There and on the continent he rapidly achieved fame and fortune. In 1784 he was knighted and honored as Count Rumford