Hartford on the Brain

On your way down Main Street from campus, at 175 Main Street, is the Hispanic Health Council, which provides health care, research, advocacy, and training to improve the health of Latinos and other diverse populations in Hartford. It was founded in 1978 and now is the largest Hispanic social service organization in the state of Connecticut.

Continue down Main Street past the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.

 

Wadsworth Atheneum Stop

If you have time, stop in. Trinity ID or Hartford resident get in for free. The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art is the oldest continuously-operating public art museum in the United States, opening its doors to the public in 1844. Notable portraits in the Wadsworth Atheneum for this tour pictured below: Horace Wells; Laurent Clerc; and Elizabeth Boardman Clerc.

Horace Wells was born January 21, 1815.  He was a dentist who is credited with pioneering the use of anesthesia in dentistry, specifically the use of nitrous oxide. After obtaining a degree, Wells set up a practice in Hartford, Connecticut, with an associate named William T. G. Morton at the corner of Main Street and Asylum Ave.  He practiced from 1841 to 1845,  On December 10, 1844 he went with his wife to  “A Grand Exhibition of the Effects Produced by Inhaling Nitrous Oxide, Exhilarating, or Laughing Gas.”  The demonstration by Gardner Quincy Colton took place at Union Hall, Hartford. During the demonstration, a local apothecary shop clerk Samuel A. Cooley was given nitrous oxide and then showed no pain after being struck or falling down. The following day, Wells conducted a trial on himself by inhaling nitrous oxide and having John Riggs extract a tooth.   He did not feel any pain so he continued to use nitrous oxide on at least 12 other patients in his office.In 1844 he went to Boston to demonstrate the powers of nitric oxide in dentistry.  For reasons unknown (some say the gas was improperly administered, others say it was because the patient was an alcoholic) the patient cried out in pain.  As a result Wells was not taken seriously and he did not ever get over this embarrassment.  He sold his home and dissolved his practice.  He left his wife and young son in Hartford and moved to New York City where he begin experimenting on himself with ether and chloroform, leading to addiction.  Under the influence he went into the street and threw sulfuric acid on two women outside.  He was sent to the Tombs Prison.  Realizing what he had done he requested a shaving kit and killed himself with the razor after inhaling chloroform.  He died on January 24, 1848 in his prison cell.  He is buried at Cedar Hill Cemetery where there is a large monument.  Twelve days before his death, unknown to him, the Parisian Medical Society voted to honor him as the first person to discover the use of ether to eliminate pain during surgery.

THE MAN WHO DEFIED PAIN

 

A history of the discovery of the application of nitrous oxide gas, ether, and other vapors, to surgical operations

 

Laurent Clerc was born in 1785 in France.  He was deaf and enrolled in the first public school for the deaf in the world, which was in France.  As an adult he was demonstrating sign language in London and his demonstration was seen by Thomas Gallaudet.  Clerc went back to Hartford with Gallaudet, arriving August 22, 1816.  He met Gallaudet’s neighbor, Alice Cogswell and they decided to open a school for the deaf.  On April 15, 1817 the school opened with seven students, including Alice.  It was originally called the Connecticut Asylum at Hartford for the Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons but is now the American School for the Deaf. Clerc served as the head teacher.  He died July 18, 1869 and is buried at Spring Grove Cemetery.  Elizabeth Boardman Clerc was from Pennington, VT and one of the first pupils at the school.  She married Laurent Marie Clerc on 3 May 1819. They had six children.  In the portrait at the Atheneum you can see her forming a sign. She is buried with Laurent at Spring Grove Cemetery.

ASL Tour: Charles Willson Peale

Louis Laurent Marie Clerc

You can learn much more about deaf history in Hartford here.

At the Atheneum you have two options.

1. Turn right on Gold Street. 1 Gold Street is the location of the first American School for the Deaf (the second is at 54 Prospect Street).  Continue until you reach 38 Prospect St. where Alice Cogswell grew up.  Nearby at 16 Buckingham is the Gallaudet House.

Alice Cogswell was born August 31, 1805, in Hartford Connecticut. At the age of two she became ill and lost her hearing as a result. The illness is unknown but is believed to have been meningitis.  Her family had very little communication with her at this point, but her neighbor Thomas Gallaudet noticed her intelligence when she was nine years old. Gallaudet noticed that Alice had the ability to spell words out in the dirt when they were playing one day. Alice’s father, Mason F. Cogswell, was thrilled by Gallaudet’s discovery. Mason raised money and used his connections to send Gallaudet to Europe to research the best strategies for deaf education. Gallaudet returned to Connecticut with Laurent Clerc, a deaf teacher. Gallaudet opened the American School for the Deaf in 1817, originally named the American Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons, where Alice was one of first students to attend. Following her graduation in 1824, Alice Cogswell travelled widely to raise awareness about the reality of deafness and the need for a system of education for deaf people.  She died at age 25 in 1830, just 13 days after the death of her father.

September 8th, 1819

There is beginning to build a new Asylum which is established on Lord’s hill. I do hope that this will be very commodious and many deaf and dumb will be able to be admitted, and the garden is established and is not new, but in full of different fruits and flowers and indeed large baoundary, and I think the view of that place will be admirable, and I hope all the deaf and dumb will have comfortable estate and be good and happy and improving.  The Providence has good blessing for us for a new Asylum.

Tribute to Gallaudet

https://www.disabilitymuseum.org/dhm/lib/detail.html?id=698

If you head back to Main Street and head north, at 805 Main Street you will find the plaque across the street from the Old Statehouse that marks the location of Horace Wells’ dental office.  The plaque was created by Enoch Woods.  It has a profile of Wells with the inscription, “To the memory of Horace Wells Dentist who upon this spot DECEMBER 11 1844 submitted to a surgical operation DISCOVERED demonstrated and proclaimed the blessings of ANESTHESIA.”

At 675 Main Street you can find a Wells stained glass window in Center Church, where Horace and his wife were members.  Inscriptions on the window read “Neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away” and “In memoriam Horace Wells the Discoverer of Anesthesia and his wife Elizabeth Wales Wells.”

 

Then turn right on Steel and visit the Connecticut Science Center. Check out their Sight and Sound exhibit and test the helmets in their Sports Lab.

 

 

 

 

 

.Turn left on Gold Street. Head into Bushnell Park.  In Bushnell Park find the statue of Horace Wells

Ride the unique carousel. Bushnell Park was designed in 1861 by Jacob Weidenmann, a Swiss-born landscape architect and botanist. He was recommended by Olmstead who was too busy working on Central Park at the time to do it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exit the Park and turn left on Asylum Ave. You should be able to find 373 Asylum where Barbara McClintock lived. Barbara McClintock was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1902. Her father, Thomas, was a physician. Her mother Sara was known as an independent thinker. Her family did not have enough money to support her, so her parents sent Barbara to live with her aunt and uncle from the ages of three to six. Barbara was described as unusual for a girl in her time. She liked to read, play baseball, climb trees, and do science. She recalled that other children teased her, but she thought it was worth it. She once stated, “I would take the consequences for the sake of an activity I knew would give me great pleasure.” After graduating high school at age sixteen, she worked in an office to save money for college. Then she learned that Cornell University College of Agriculture was free, so she went there. In college, she discovered her love of genetics. Early in her career, she produced the first genetic map of the maize plant. After years of research, she discovered that some genes actually jump. At the time it was thought that genes stayed in a special order, like beads on a string, and so her results were doubted and questioned. But in 1983 Dr. McClintock won a Nobel Prize for her discovery of transposons or “mobile genetic elements.”

“If you know you are on the right track, if you have this inner knowledge, then nobody can turn you off… no matter what they say.”–Barbara McClintock

 

 

 

https://www.nobelprize.org/womenwhochangedscience/stories/barbara-mcclintock

https://www.cwhf.org/inductees/barbara-mcclintock

 

Continue on Asylum Ave to Gallaudet Square. Admire the statue of Alice Cogswell.

 

Pictured above is Alice Cogswell in one of the only recorded portraits of her. Alice Cogswell lost her hearing at the age of two from an illness. This did not stop her or her friend Thomas Gallaudet from showing the world that deafness was not a mental illness. Gallaudet went to England to find the best methods for deaf education and would not stop until he could prove that Alice and everyone in the deaf community is just as intelligent as anyone else.When Thomas Gallaudet returned home and opened the American School for the Deaf, Alice Cogswell was one of the seven students to be enrolled in the first class. She attended the American School for the deaf from 1817-1824, eventually graduating at the age of 19. During her time at school she made many great accomplishments. At the time she received an education, the United States had no standardized sign language that existed. From Gallaudet’s research with Laurent Cler, a French teacher, the American School for the Deaf created the new standardized language, American Sign Language. This made Alice Cogswell the first on the list for learning American Sign Language. She was also the first person to be taught the manual finger spelled alphabet. However, Alice communicated with a combination of American Sign Language and verbal speaking.

After graduation, Alice continued to work to break standards of deafness. She loved to travel and was very social. Though it is unknown what she did exactly to promote deaf education, she is still an inspiring figure. She broke down many stereotypes of deafness and intelligence, as she was very bright herself. Although she was obviously skilled at American Sign Langue, but she had many other capabilities. Alice also had an interest in drawing and writing. Pictured below is a page from the handwritten Catechism that she kept. I took this image at the museum at the American School for the Deaf that is still open today in West Hartford, Connecticut.

Katherine Carver, who has lived in Hartford for about 50 years now, is working on research about Alice Cogswell. In an interview I had with Katherine, who attended Gallaudet University and who also has a hearing impairment, she said she is connected to Alice in that they both never gave up. When talking about perspective on life and whether the glass is half full or half empty, Katherine responded with “mines always overflowing.” Alice was able to have a similar positive perspective on life because of her family dynamic. Alice had two caring parents, Dr. Mason Finch Cogswell, and Mary Austin Ledyard. She had three sisters and one brother, have an amazing relationship with her sisters. However, at a young age her siblings did not speak to her much, as she had little ways to communicate with them. They had a few personalized hand symbols that would not be understood outside the household, but Mason Cogswell was adamant on finding what was best for Alice.

Mason Cogswell played a significant role in Alice’s story. He was a member of the Connecticut Society and was the foster son Samuel Huntington, president of the Continental Congress and governor of Connecticut.  Mason was a notable physician and an accomplished surgeon. He was determined to help Alice, which is why he used his connections and raised lots of money in order to send Gallaudet to England to do research. Without Mason Cogswell, Gallaudet would have never been able to do research, come back and open the American School for the Deaf, and start a new beginning for Alice. Alice had a strong relationship with her father, but when he passed away on December 17, 1830, at the age of 69, Alice was heartbroken. Alice then passed away 13 days later on December 30, 1830, at the age of 25. Both Mason and Alice Cogswell are buried in The Old North Cemetery on Main Street in Hartford, Connecticut. Pictured below is an image I took at their grave site in Lot A of The Old North Cemetery.

In addition to the Old North Cemetery, there are a few more sites that are in Connecticut and other states that recognize Alice Cogswell. Pictured below is a statue of Alice and Gallaudet in front of the American School for the Deaf today. Another statue of Alice can be found in Gallaudet Square on Farmington Ave and Asylum Ave in West Hartford. Asylum Ave is named after the original name for the America School for the Deaf which was the American Asylum for the Education and Instruction for Deaf and Dumb Persons. This same statue below is also located at Gallaudet University in Washington D.C.

In conclusion, Alice Cogswell was a prominent figure when it comes to the deaf education system we have today, especially at the American School for the Deaf. Being one of the first students at the American School for the Deaf and one of the first students to learn the American Sign Language were amazing accomplishments that broke many standards of deafness at the time. She was a person who never gave up and continued to break down stereotypes even after graduating. Although her perspective one life kept her going, she would not have been able to do it without great support from her friends and family. In particular, Mason Cogswell and Thomas Gallaudet played a significant role in beginning Alice’s journey. Although her journey ended at the young age of 25, it is still inspiring to hear her story and know that she grew up, lived, and learned right here in Hartford, Connecticut.