Mason Fitch Cogswell (28 September 1761 – 17 December 1830) was a United States

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

Biography

Cogswell was born on 28 September 1761 in

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...

, the third son of the Reverend James Cogswell and Alice Fitch. His mother died when he was 11 years old; after this his father moved to New Scotland Parish in Windham and later remarried. Cogswell was left in the care of Samuel Huntington, president of the Continental Congress and governor of Connecticut. Cogswell matriculated and graduated as valedictorian from

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

in 1780. At Yale, he was a member of the debating society,

Brothers in Unity Brothers in Unity (formally, the Society of Brothers in Unity) is an undergraduate society at Yale University. Founded in 1768 as a literary and debating society that encompassed nearly half the student body at its 19th-century peak, the group di ...

. He studied medicine with his brother James at the soldiers' hospital in

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during the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

, and eventually became one of the best known surgeons in the country. He was one of the first in the United States to remove a

cataract A cataract is a cloudy area in the lens of the eye that leads to a decrease in vision. Cataracts often develop slowly and can affect one or both eyes. Symptoms may include faded colors, blurry or double vision, halos around light, trouble ...

from the eye, and the first American to tie the carotid artery (1803). Cogswell was close to the

Hartford Wits The Hartford Wits were a group of young writers from Connecticut in the late eighteenth century and included John Trumbull, Timothy Dwight, David Humphreys, Joel Barlow and Lemuel Hopkins. Originally the Connecticut Wits, this group formed in t ...

, a group of young writers from Connecticut. He died of pneumonia in 1830 in

Hartford Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since t ...

. Cogswell is a highly influential person within American Deaf cultural history. His daughter, Alice, became deaf at the age of two as a result of surviving scarlet fever. Though highly intelligent, her intellectual progress was slow. At this point, there was no established educational system for deaf children, nor was there an established official language of the deaf. Though there did exist signed languages within the United States, such as

Martha's Vineyard Sign Language Martha's Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL) was a village sign-language that was once widely used on the island of Martha's Vineyard from the early 18th century to 1952. It was used by both Deaf and hearing people in the community; consequently, dea ...

, none were standardized across the country. Cogswell eventually had his neighbor

Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet (December 10, 1787 – September 10, 1851) was an American educator. Along with Laurent Clerc and Mason Cogswell, he co-founded the first permanent institution for the education of the deaf in North America, and he be ...

travel to Europe to learn and bring back methods in instruction for the deaf. Gallaudet first traveled to England, where an oral method was generally used, but was unable to gain access to instruction methods. He then traveled to France, where the educational system instead focused on use of

French Sign Language French Sign Language (french: langue des signes française, LSF) is the sign language of the deaf in France and French-speaking parts of Switzerland. According to ''Ethnologue'', it has 100,000 native signers. French Sign Language is relate ...

as an instructional method. He eventually traveled back with French teacher

Laurent Clerc Louis Laurent Marie Clerc (; 26 December 1785 – 18 July 1869) was a French teacher called "The Apostle of the Deaf in America" and was regarded as the most renowned deaf person in American Deaf History. He was taught by Abbé Sicard and dea ...

who brought French Sign Language to the United States. With their return, Cogswell assisted in the founding of the first permanent school for the deaf in North America – the

American School for the Deaf The American School for the Deaf (ASD), originally ''The American Asylum, At Hartford, For The Education And Instruction Of The Deaf'', is the oldest permanent school for the deaf in the United States, and the first school for children with dis ...

– in Hartford, Connecticut, in which his daughter was the first pupil.

Notes

References

External links

* Mason Fitch Cogswell Papers. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. 1761 births 1830 deaths 18th-century American physicians American maxillofacial surgeons Deaths from pneumonia in Connecticut People from Canterbury, Connecticut People of colonial Connecticut People of Connecticut in the American Revolution Physicians in the American Revolution Yale University alumni {{US-physician-stub