Sarah Thompson, Countess Rumford

Sarah Thompson, Countess Rumford, (18 October 1774 – 2 December 1852) was a philanthropist.^[1][2] She is the first American to be known as a Reichsgräfin or Imperial Countess, a Holy Roman Empire title granted by the Electorate of Bavaria.^[1][2][3] Both her parents were born and brought up in the American colonies and married there in 1772. During the American Revolutionary War of 1775 to 1783, her father Benjamin Thompson took the side of the British, and at the end of the war he moved to London. He was knighted in 1784.^[2]

The countess's gravestone monument

Sarah Thompson, Countess Rumford
Sarah Thompson, Countess Rumford, stipple engraving by Joseph Peter Paul Rauschmayer (1758–1815), after a portrait painted by Kellerhofen in Munich in 1797
Born	(1774-10-18)18 October 1774 Concord, New Hampshire
Died	2 December 1852(1852-12-02) (aged 78) Concord, New Hampshire
Known for	First American countess
Parent	Benjamin Thompson

References

1. "Saratoga newspaper article". Retrieved 2008-07-18.
2. Nathaniel Bouton (1857). The History of Concord: From Its First Grant in 1725 to the Organization of the City Government in 1853. Concord: Benning W. Sanford. pp. 572–573.
3. Metcalf, p. 84

External links

• A Biography of Benjamin Thompson (her father), written in 1868
• Count Rumford – General Benjamin Thompson additional family history