Results for subject term "Charles Thompson House #55 Baker – Built in 1874, the home of Charles Thompson, nicknamed “Professor Charlie”<br />
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Charles was born in Portland Maine in 1824 and, in the mid 1830s, came to work for William Stearns of Boston. He worked for a time as a fireman in Cambridge. He left this household to work as a sailor on the whaling ship “Warren.” It is said when the ship’s crew mutinied, he was the only man to stay faithful to the captain. The voyage lasted four years. After the Warren voyage, Thompson sailed around the world on the Kremlin. <br />
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Charles left the sea and resumed work at the Stearns’ household. They moved to Amherst when William Stearns was named President of Amherst College. <br />
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Frazar Stearns, son of William Stearns, was a volunteer for the Civil War. He was a close friend of Emily Dickinson and, no doubt, a very close friend of Charles. In fact, Charles Thompson is recorded by Emily Dickinson as playing the fiddle at her home. On 22 June 1851 Dickinson (age twenty) wrote to her brother: “Our Reading Club still is, and becomes now very pleasant—the last time Charles came in when we had finished reading, and we broke up with a dance—”<br />
Thompson played the fiddle and taught some of the local children his tunes. We know from published accounts that Thompson played the tune “Money Musk.” He likely would have also played “Fisher’s Hornpipe” and the minstrel tune “Old Dan Tucker” which was immensely popular. These were tunes that Dickinson knew and are among the music that she collected.”<br />
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Charles married Eliza Thompson who was born in 1832 in Albany, NY, tshe daughter of James Thompson. From 1850 through 1857, she lived in the household of Christopher Thompson. Christopher may have lived in a rented tenement on North Pleasant Street at the time. He enrolled in the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry Regiment and was in Texas to announce the end of the war and slavery. <br />
Christoper was married to Matilda Richardson Bias. <br />
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They adopted a daughter Mary Elizabeth Powers. Eliza is listed as working as a housekeeper in Amherst in 1870. <br />
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By 1865, he was named “Professor of Dust and Ashes” at the school and for a while he was in charge of all its janitors. <br />
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Charles worked for Amherst College most of his life and when he was 82 and nearly destitute, Stearns’ daughter, Abigail Eloise Stearns Lee, appealed to those who benefitted from his service, writing a book “Professor Charlie” Charles and his wife Eliza lived in this house until their deaths. There adopted daughter Mary lived on Baker Street with her husband William Hawkins.<br />
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