A note-book made by him about this time still exists. It abounds in caricatures. Has receipts for different fireworks. One of these ends with, ‘Love is a noble passion of the mind.’ Contains the sum he paid for learning French and for pew-rent, and the sums gained by cutting and carting firewood for relatives. Instructions for the back sword exercise, with a sketch of two combatants; and later there is an account of ‘what expense I have been at towards getting an electrical machine,’ and ‘an account of what work I have done towards getting an electrical machine.’
In the winter of 1770 he was ill for five weeks with fever. Then for eighteen months off and on he boarded with Dr. John Hay, of Woburn, and whilst with him he learned something of anatomy, chemistry, materia medica, surgery, and physic. During the summer, 1771, he went to Cambridge, to attend Mr. Winthrop’s lectures on Experimental Philosophy. In the winter of 1771-2 for some weeks he was teaching in a school at Wilmington, and in the spring he taught at Bradford. In the summer he left Dr. Hay for good, because he was asked by Colonel Walker to become the fixed master of a school at Concord, New Hampshire. This place had been called Rumford when it belonged to Essex County, Massachusetts. The name was changed when the disputes as to the county to which it belonged were ended.
The Rev. T. Walker was the first minister of Concord. He was a native of Woburn and connected with the Thompson family. He was the chief man in Concord. His son was a colonel and a lawyer, and his daughter, when about thirty, was married to Colonel Rolfe, who was sixty. She was left a rich widow in two years, and in the middle of the following year Thompson came as schoolmaster to Concord. He was not yet quite twenty. His friend Baldwin describes him ‘as of fine, manly make and figure, nearly six feet high, with handsome features, bright blue eyes and dark auburn hair. His manners were polished and his ways fascinating, and he could make himself agreeable. He had well used his opportunities of culture, so that his knowledge was beyond that of most of those around him, and he was able to give satisfaction as a teacher.’
In the country parsonage and at Colonel Walker’s house he frequently met Mrs. Rolfe, and he told his friend Professor Pictet that she married him rather than he her. This was about the end of 1772, when he was nearly twenty. He had to teach no more in school. His marriage made him one of the chief men in Concord.
After his marriage he went with his wife to Portsmouth, where she knew Governor Wentworth. ‘He saw in young Thompson not only the representative of a family already known in the public and social life of his province, but also a man of much promise, one likely to work vigorously in whatever he took up.’ The Governor soon gave Thompson a commission as major in the second provincial regiment of New Hampshire. The young officer at once became an object of jealousy and ill-will to all the lieutenants and captains of his regiment. The favour of the Governor made all his brother officers his enemies.
The following letter to the Rev. Mr. Williams, at Bradford, afterwards Professor at the college there, shows the influence of Thompson with the Governor, and also some of his scientific thoughts and aims:
Concord, Monday, January 17, 1773.
Dear Sir,—Last Friday I had the honour to wait upon his Excellency, Governour Wentworth, at Portsmouth, where I was very politely and agreeably entertained for the space of an hour and a half. I had not been in his company long before I proceeded upon business, viz. to ask his Excellency whether ever the White Mountains had been surveyed. He answering me in the negative, I proceeded to acquaint him that there was a number of persons who had thought of making an expedition that way next summer, and asked him whether it would be agreeable to his Excellency. He said it would be extremely agreeable, seemed excessively pleased with the plan, promised to do all that lay in his power to forward it,—said that he had a number of Mathematical instruments (such as two or three telescopes, Barometer, Thermometer, Compass, &c.) at Wentworth House, (at Wolfeborough, only about thirty miles from the mountains), all which, together with his library, should be at our service. That he should be extremely glad to wait on us, and to crown all he promised, if there were no public business which rendered his presence at Portsmouth absolutely necessary, that he would take his tent equipage and go with us to the mountain and tarry with us, and assist us till our survey, which he said he supposed would take about twelve or fourteen days!!!—!!—!!!!!
During 1773 he was chiefly farming. Whilst on a visit with his wife to Boston he was introduced to Governor Gage and to several of the British officers. Among those who worked for him on his farm were four deserters from the grenadiers at Boston. He persuaded them to return to their regiment. He wrote to General Gage to beg pardon for them. He asked that his petition might be kept secret. He wished not to excite more enmity among his neighbours. But the use of his influence with the Governor got known. The bitterest feeling was working in the country. Civil war was about to begin. Major Thompson was suspected by the people because he was in favour with the royal Governors. The committees of correspondence and of safety listened to the reports of any of the ‘sons of liberty.’ Major Thompson was called before a committee of the people in Concord for being ‘unfriendly to the cause of liberty.’ He denied the charge, and was acquitted. About this time (August 1774) he asks his friend, Mr. Loammi Baldwin, merchant in Woburn, ‘to favour him with an easy question, arithmetical or algebraical, and he will give as good an account of it as possible.’ In October his only child, Sarah, was born. In November the mob gathered round his house, but by friendly warning he was able to escape to his mother’s at Woburn, fifty miles away. Here he sought to busy himself by reading, and he made some experiments on gunpowder; but ill-will soon followed him, and he was driven for shelter to a friend at Charleston. Thence he wrote to his father-in-law at Concord:
December 24, 1774.
Reverend Sir,—The time and circumstances of my leaving the town of Concord have, no doubt, given you great uneasiness, for which I am extremely sorry. Nothing short of the most threatening danger could have induced me to leave my friends and family; but when I learned from persons of undoubted veracity, and those whose friendship I could not suspect, that my situation was reduced to this dreadful extremity, I thought it absolutely necessary to abscond for a while, and seek a friendly asylum in some distant part.
Fear of miscarriage prevents my giving a more particular account of this affair; but this you may rely and depend upon, that I never did, nor (let my treatment be what it will) ever will do, any action that may have the most distant tendency to injure the true interest of this my native country.
I most humbly beg your kind care of my distressed family; and I hope you will take an opportunity to alleviate their trouble by assuring them that I am in a place of safety, and hope shortly to have the pleasure of seeing them. I also most humbly beseech your prayers for me, that under all my difficulties and troubles I may behave in such a manner as to approve myself a true servant of God and a sincere friend of my country.
To have tarried at Concord and have stood another trial at the bar of the populace would doubtless have been attended with unhappy consequences, as my innocence would have stood me in no stead against the prejudices of an enraged, infatuated multitude,—and much less against the determined villany of my inveterate enemies, who strive to raise their popularity on the ruins of my character. My friends would have been deemed unfriendly to the cause of Liberty, and my defence would have been treated with contempt and disdain. It would have been vain for me to have pretended to curb the fury or calm the rage of this popular whirlwind; but I must have been cast, and condemned to suffer punishments equal to the blackness of my supposed transgressions.
The plan against me was deeply laid, and the people of Concord were not the only ones that were engaged in it. But others to the distance of twenty miles were extremely officious on this occasion. My persecution was determined on, and my flight unavoidable. And had I not taken the opportunity to leave the town the moment I did, another morning had effectually cut off my retreat.