Harvard University. Rumford Society

The Rumford Society was so called in honor of Count Rumford, who ... bequeathed ... money to Harvard College ... for the purpose of founding a Professorship 'to teach the utility of the physical and mathematical sciences, for the improvement of the useful arts.' ... This Society was founded on the 16th of November, 1848, by a few members of the Junior class who were interested in the study of Chemistry and desired the means of acquiring knowledge in this department of Natural Philosophy. The College Faculty granted ... as a laboratory one of the basement rooms in Massachusetts Hall (No. 3), and gave them all the apparatus formerly belonging to the Davy and Hermetic Clubs