Sarah Thompson, Countess Rumford

{{Infobox person

|name = Sarah Thompson, Countess Rumford

|image =Sarah Rumford, c 1797.jpg

|image_size =200px

|caption = Sarah Thompson, Countess Rumford, stipple engraving by Joseph Peter Paul Rauschmayer (1758–1815), after a portrait painted by Kellerhofen in Munich in 1797

|birth_date ={{birth date|1774|10|18|df=y}}

|birth_place = Concord, New Hampshire

|known_for = First American countess

|death_date = {{death date and age|1852|12|2|1774|10|18|df=y}}

|death_place = Concord, New Hampshire

|occupation =

|spouse =

|parents = Benjamin Thompson

}}

Sarah Thompson, Countess Rumford, (18 October 1774 – 2 December 1852) was a philanthropist.{{cite web|url=http://www.leasingnews.org/archives/February%202007/02-23-07.htm|title= Saratoga newspaper article|accessdate= 2008-07-18}} 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.[https://books.google.com/books?id=PBk8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA84&dq=%22Countess+of+Rumford%22+first+American+countess Metcalf, p. 84] 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.{{cite book | author= Nathaniel Bouton | author-link= Nathaniel Bouton | title=The History of Concord: From Its First Grant in 1725 to the Organization of the City Government in 1853| url= https://archive.org/details/historyconcordf01boutgoog | location=Concord | publisher=Benning W. Sanford | year=1857 |pages=572–573}}

Image:Countess Sarah Rumford Monument 2005.jpg