Hartford North End Clay-Arsenal Science Walking Tour
Old North Cemetery
Begin this tour in the Old North Cemetery at 1821 Main Street. This cemetery was created in 1807. Among the notable people buried here are Frederick Law Olmstead and Horace Bushnell.
Old North Cemetery is where Alice Cogswell and her father Dr. Mason Cogswell are buried Section A / Lot 47.
Cogswell Headstone
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.
https://www.disabilitymuseum.org/dhm/lib/detail.html?id=698
Marker of the graves of the students from the ASD
Twenty-six other students of the American School for the Deaf (ASD) are buried here, marked only by a “shaft.” The shaft has their names and home towns engraved on the sides. Section G around Lot 920.
The students are:
Mary Armor, GA – died of consumption in 1864 – age 23
George Ball, MA – died of typhus in 1850 – age 13
Elizabeth Blizzard, GA – cause of death not listed in 1839 – age 17
Theodore Brightman, MA – fell from a swing in 1843 – age 12
Donald Campbell, Nova Scotia – died of lung fever in 1846 – age 16
P. Jane Davison, VT – died of typhoid fever in 1847 – age 16
Benjamin Dawson, NH – killed walking on RR tracks in 1857 – age 12 (with Parker, see below)
James Fennell, ME – died of fever in 1860 – age 18
Frances Graham, NH – died of dropsy in 1848 – age 15
Caroline Hammett, MA – died of lung fever in 1857 – age 16
Cora Hilton, ME – disease not listed in 1879 – age 11
Henry Hodgdon, MA – cause of death not listed in 1879 – age 10
Almira Kilbourn, NH – died of consumption in 1846 – age 13
Catharine Luce, MA – died of lung fever in 1857 – age 12
John Parker, MA – killed walking on RR tracks in 1857 – age 13 (with Dawson, above)
Sally Perkins, ME – died from measles in 1841 – age 16
Drusilla Sloan, SC – died from dysentery in 1849 – age 16 (sister of Ellen, below)
Ellen Sloan, SC – died from dysentery in 1849 – age 17 (the sisters died a few hours apart)
Samuel Smart, NH – died of consumption in 1845 – age 19
Charles Smith, NH – died of lung fever in 1847 – age 20
Joseph Smith, ME – died of typhoid pneumonia in 1874 – age 14
Eliza Standley, ME – died of inflammation of the lungs in 1852 – age 24
Mary Jane Stevenson, NH – died of pulmonary disease in 1852 – age 12
William Turner, MA – died of erysipelas in 1849 – age 12
Helen Wakefield, ME – died of inflammation of the lungs in 1852 – age 18
Beulah Wentworth, VT – died of congestive fever in 1842 – age 12
Also buried in ASD’s plot is the school’s Assistant Steward, Salmon Crossett, who died on Christmas day in 1883. Prior to his death he requested that he be buried with the deaf students in ASD’s plot.
All the students listed were out-of-state borders. The time and cost of transportation in those days made it impractical to send the bodies back to their home states.
The American School for the Deaf was founded in 1817 by Mason Cogswell and Thomas Gallaudet. It was the first permanent school for the deaf in the United States.
Many thanks to Jean Linderman at the Cogswell Heritage House for this information.
Anna Louise James’ parents are also buried here, but the marker has gone missing Section I / Lot 1349.
Memorial to Eli Todd
Eli Todd is buried here. Section F / Lot 608.
Eli Todd was the first Director of the Institute of Living. His sister Eunice died by suicide after many years of depression and many attempts at treatment. This led him to the belief that depression was a disease that should be treated medically. He remained the director until 1833. You can learn more about him here.
https://connecticuthistory.org/medical-pioneer-eli-todd-born/
Mary Townsend Seymour is buried here.
Across the street from the cemetery at 1750 Main Street is the site of the Arsenal School where Anna Louise James went to school. Go south on Main Street and take a right on Mather Street and then a left on Green and a right on Winter. Find 6 Winter Street where Anna Louise James was born.
Anna Louise James at the James pharmacy
Anna Louise James was born on January 19, 1886, in Hartford to Willis Samuel James and Anna Houston, the eight of eleven children. Willis Samuel James was a Virginia plantation slave who escaped at age 16 and followed the underground railroad to Connecticut. She attended the Arsenal Elementary School in Hartford and then the family moved to Old Saybrook after her mother died when Ms James was 8 years old. Ms. James became, in 1908, the first African American woman to graduate from the Brooklyn College of Pharmacy in New York and the only woman in her class. She operated a drugstore in Hartford until 1911, when she went to work for her brother-in-law at his pharmacy in Old Saybrook, making her the first Black woman pharmacist in Connecticut. The Connecticut Pharmaceutical Association, however, rejected her application for membership because she was a woman and suggested she join the women’s auxiliary. She persisted, stating “there were pharmacists in my family as long as I can remember” In 1917, Anna took over the pharmacy and renamed it James Pharmacy. She maintained the pharmacy until 1967. With the passage of the 19th amendment to the US Constitution in 1920 she became one of the first women to register to vote. In 1974 the Veterans of Foreign Wars honored her as Citizen of the Year, noting her generosity, hospitality, and compassion. You can learn more about her here.
Head right at the end of Winter Street and left on Mather. Turn right on Garden Street. Continue three blocks to Capen Street and turn right on Capen. 201 Capen is the site of the clinic run by Dr. Henry Patrick Clay Arms.
PHC Arms
Patrick Henry Clay Arms was the first licensed Black physician in Hartford and first African American to run for Mayor in Hartford. He was born in Bridgeport in 1867, his father was from Cuba and his mother from South America. He graduated from Howard University in 1890 and Columbia University Medical School in 1894. He practiced medicine in Hartford for 40 years at 201 Capen Street and then 94 Walnut Street. He was the founder of Arms Council 1697, Independent Order of Luke, which was a local benefit society. He married Anna Cross in 1903 and they had two children, Elvira Arms and Jarvis Henry Arms.
When the stage play The Clansman was scheduled for Hartford in 1906, Dr. Arms argued that if a play like George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession would be excluded on moral grounds, the same standard should apply to The Clansman. After a Hartford protest by a gropu of black and white clergy, Mayor Henney agreed to travel to Manhattan and see the play for himself. He watched a performance on December 5, 1906. When he returned to Hartford, the mayor admitted there were “some uncomplimentary allusions to the negro that were liberally applauded.” However, even given that, Henney proclaimed there was nothing immoral in the play’s content. The show premiered as scheduled at Parson’s Theater.
On December 28, 1907 Dr. Arms had a call out on Farmington Ave at 3:00 am. On his way out a Police Officer David Mairson stopped him and “made him give an account of himself.” Dr. Arms brought charges against the officer. The officer was found “guilty of nothing but the faithful performance of his duties and the commissioners told him to do the same thing again under similar circumstances.” Hartford Courant, January 7, 1908
You can learn more about him here:
He died in 1934 and is buried at Zion Hill Cemetery. His wife Anna (Cross) Arms is also buried there.
Spring Grove Cemetery
You should now be at Spring Grove Cemetery which extends to the Old North Cemetery and whose entrance is at 2035 Main St.
Memorials of the Clercs
Laurent and Elizabeth Clerc are buried here. 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.
