USA > New Hampshire > Grafton County > Hanover > Hanover, New Hampshire, a bicentennial book : essays in celebration of the town's 200th anniversary > Part 20
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Several other Crosby doctors practiced or taught in Hanover. Dr. Alpheus Benning Crosby, called "Dr. Ben" to distinguish him from his father "Dr. Dixi," was the best known. He obtained the M.D. degree at Dartmouth in 1856 and won wide renown as a surgeon and as a speaker on serious and light subjects. At one time he was a lecturer on the faculties of five different medical schools, including Dartmouth. In 1872 he went to New York City to carry on a distinguished practice, dying of an infected wound at the age of forty-five.
While not a practitioner, the versatile Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes made a favorable impression on townspeople when he taught anatomy and physiology at the Medical School from 1838 to 1841. It is believed that the character of Dr. Kittredge in Elsie Venner was sketched from Holmes' observation of his colleague Dixi Crosby. During his Hanover years, Holmes' inventiveness produced a light hand-microscope to enable his students to ex- amine specimens without moving from their seats in the class- room.
Dr. Edmund R. Peaslee, who succeeded Dr. Holmes, was a so- cial and learned man; his writings were among the medical authorities of his day. An excellent physician and surgeon, he taught at Dartmouth and practiced in Hanover for thirty-six years. Then like so many of his colleagues, he removed his prac- tice to the city. He died in New York in 1878.
Dr. Joel Brown, a respected and able citizen who came from Coventry, Connecticut, and settled in Hanover Center before the Revolution, practiced medicine here for over fifty years. Through- out his lifetime he cared for nearly all the residents of East Han- over in their times of sickness.
Hanover has had a fortunate continuity in its medical tradi-
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tion, partly because able sons chose to follow in their doctor- fathers' footsteps. After the Crosbys left the scene, the Frost family succeeded.
A distinct note of modernity highlights the local medical pic- ture with the advent of Dr. Carlton Pennington Frost. A good share of his well-directed energy was devoted to bringing about changes which would benefit those living after him. He served as the first dean of the Medical School, and was a much loved and tireless physician. Day and night, summer and winter, his carriage or sleigh might be seen on the road. Through his efforts the permanent Medical School faculty was enlarged; a recitation pe- riod was added to the existing lecture term, and the enrollment rose to one hundred students in 1879. He was largely responsible for having such improvements as electricity and running water brought to Hanover. Most valuable of all was his success in inter- esting the philanthropist Hiram Hitchcock in the town's need for a hospital.
Because of his busy practice, Dr. Frost had to carry on most of his teaching duties at night, with students coming to his home. His son Edwin B. Frost, later a noted astronomer, enjoyed with other town boys frequent visits to the Medical School dissecting rooms. In his book An Astronomer's Life, he writes: "I can recall a portly cadaver sitting in a chair in the large lecture room not used in winter, waiting for his turn to be taken down to the tables below. Formalin had not at that time been discovered. . . . The winter class came to Father's office about five evenings in the week for recitation, at our house. ... The first process after the stu- dents left was a most thorough ventilation."
Dr. Carlton Frost had another son, Gilman D. Frost, who was to follow in his footsteps, in the Medical School, practicing, and serving as the first acting medical director of Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital. A brilliant man, he is still vividly remem- bered by older Hanoverians who admired his medical ability yet sometimes had cause to dread the steady acumen of his gaze.
The Frost brothers had their part in making history. Both were greatly interested in Roentgen's discovery on December 28, 1895, of X-ray. It happened that in January, Eddie McCarthy, a Han- over schoolboy, had broken his wrist while skating on the Con- necticut River. In the presence of his wife and brother, Dr. Gilman Frost performed an X-ray of his patient's injury in Dartmouth's physics laboratory in Reed Hall. Thanks to Edwin B.
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Frost's prompt action, this event was recorded by him under date of February 4, 1896, in Science magazine, the article describing his brother's use of the new ray in diagnosis and establishing this as the first medical X-ray on record in the United States.
Under the leadership of Dr. Carlton Frost, the "Dartmouth Hos- pital Association" had been formed in 1885 by resident and visit- ing doctors. A tract of land had been secured north of the village and a small building fund started. Then a benefactor appeared. Hiram Hitchcock, wealthy proprietor of New York's Fifth Ave- nue Hotel, and a friend of Dr. Frost's, had long been a summer resident of Hanover and active in its affairs. Upon his wife's death he made known his desire to give a hospital to the com- munity in her name. A corporation was set up consisting of some twenty men who at their first meeting on September 2, 1889, elected twelve trustees. Among them were Dr. C. P. Frost and Dr. Edward Cowles, non-resident lecturer at the Medical School. Both were active in early hospital planning.
In 1890 the building's foundations were laid, and on May 3, 1893, Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital was dedicated. The Reverend S. P. Leeds made the invocation and President Tucker spoke on behalf of the College. There was some caution about entering the new hospital, but fifteen days after its opening, the first patient, a thirteen-year-old girl from West Lebanon, was ad- mitted for "hip joint disease."
The first medical staff was made up of three members of the Dartmouth Medical School: Dr. Carlton Frost; Dr. William T. Smith, son of Dartmouth's President Asa D. Smith; and Dr. Gil- man D. Frost.
Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, with a bed capacity of thirty-six, was the first in the United States to be built on the pavilion plan. Constructed of the finest materials, the building was of early Italian Renaissance architecture: its foundations of granite; the outer walls of Pompeian mottled brick; and the roof of red tile. Set in spacious grounds, the hospital was a handsome addition to the town, and brought it fame, as architectural maga- zines in this country and abroad praised the institution for its utility and elegance.
It was Hiram Hitchcock's wish that a training school for nurses be established along with the hospital. Its first class numbered two students, but by 1902 the school had sixteen members and twenty had been graduated,
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Dr. C. P. Frost died in May 1896, and that fall Dr. John M. Gile began his long and invaluable service to the hospital, to Hanover, and to the surrounding countryside. A graduate of Dartmouth, he received the M.D. degree in 1891 and became a professor in the Medical School in 1897. He was made its dean in 1910. In the Crosby and Frost tradition he had a son who later took over much of his work. Dr. John F. Gile perpetuated in his own right the bond of affection felt by more than two generations of patients.
Returning from his long and rough journeys to the sick in the back North Country, Dr. Gile Sr. brought with him an invaluable contribution to the hospital: a fund of good will from rural com- munities. A calm and skillful surgeon, he had often to adapt him- self to such operating rooms as farm kitchens, and was accustomed to driving at all hours to reach them. The impact of Dr. Gile's personality is well described by L. B. Richardson: "Companion- able ... always interested in the interests of others, whole- souled and genuine, wherever he was known he was admired and loved. . .. He had so built himself into his chosen environment that at his departure the multitude with whom he had come into contact-everyone his friend-looked at each other aghast as at the loss of one indispensable to the community life."
In 1900 Hiram Hitchcock died, and the support of the hos- pital's great benefactor came to an end. With a shock akin to that of the orphaned, trustees and townspeople realized that they were on their own. The hospital would have to be closed without prompt and generous help from the community. The help came, but from this time on there was to be a never-ending struggle: the need for hospital expansion coupled with a scarcity of funds.
Fortunately, Mary Hitchcock Hospital has always been rich in its human resources. The careful planning by intelligent men who have believed in its purposes, and the whole-hearted response of an ever larger group benefiting from its services have mainly been responsible for its steady and remarkable growth.
Outright gifts of money and supplies, the endowment of free beds, benefit entertainments and many other forms of contribu- tion helped stabilize the hospital's existence. While it was still comparatively small and before the times of modern refrigeration, Donation Day was for many years a valued and genial form of as- sistance. From far and near, farmers, kitchen gardeners and house- wives brought vegetables, canned goods, jams, jellies and other gifts. From the beginning, women's groups have proved invalu-
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able. Many diverse efforts were unified with the forming of the Women's Auxiliary. Proud of its large membership and its ten or more volunteer committees, it has made outstanding contribu- tions in service, as well as in fund drives and other money raising activities.
During the hospital's first year of existence, the daily average occupancy was an estimated 5.5; in the year 1900-01 it was 15.2; and by 1905 it had risen to 28.7. In 1918 when the hospital ob- served its first quarter-century of use, the daily average occupancy was over 54. The medical staff was made up of Dr. Gilman D. Frost; Dr. John M. Gile; Dr. Percy Bartlett; Dr. Elmer H. Carle- ton, an eye, ear and throat specialist; and Dr. Howard N. Kings- ford, pathologist. In 1922 Dr. Harry T. French came as a roent- genologist, later joining the regular medical staff. He is now an emeritus member.
In his report of 1927, William R. Gray, president of the board of trustees, said, "Gratifying as such evidence of serviceableness may be, it is apparent that the problem of meeting the growing demands upon the Hospital is becoming critical." In that year Dick Hall's House was given to the College by Mr. and Mrs. E. K. Hall in memory of their son Richard. Designed to provide both a hospital of some forty beds and a home-like environment for ill Dartmouth students, Dick's House is connected with Mary Hitch- cock Hospital and is served by its medical staff. In the year 1926-27 the hospital underwent some major enlargements, as its central plant would be used to serve Dick's House, and as Mary Hitch- cock's bed capacity and other requirements were gravely inade- quate.
It was in this year of decision that a major and far-reaching change came from within the hospital. This was a plan whose form was unique in northern New England, although in tradition it went back to Nathan Smith's concept of combining the prac- tice, teaching and learning of medicine, even in a rural setting. The circumstances which determined the plan were unusual. The hospital's medical staff then consisted of five men, each with his own office and practice. Only the ward patient had the benefit of treatment by all the doctors. Between Boston and Montreal there was a great lack of specialized medical practice, and an amazing ninety per cent of Mary Hitchcock's patients came from beyond Hanover. It was recognized that in the near future the hospital
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would either have to give up its role as a regional medical center or radically change the form of its professional service.
The challenge was met, and with trustee approval the Hitch- cock Clinic was established. Coordinating personnel and equip- ment, the doctors now practiced as a unit, their offices being lo- cated within the hospital. Consultations were readily achieved. The multiple injury case, often the result of an accident, promptly had the benefit of the surgeon, medical internist and neurologist, should these be required. A child with a broken leg might be routinely treated by the pediatrician as well as the orthopedic surgeon. More than was ever anticipated, patients were referred to the hospital and clinic by doctors in outlying areas for surgery, diagnosis and special treatment.
Today some sixty doctors representing twenty specialties make up the Hitchcock Clinic and are the professional staff of the three- hundred-bed Mary Hitchcock Hospital. The largest group are de- voted to the practice of internal medicine. All teach on the faculty of the Dartmouth Medical School and many carry on research projects in laboratories under the direction of the Medical School and the Hitchcock Foundation. Dr. John P. Bowler, whose father Dr. John W. Bowler was Physical Director at Dartmouth, was a clinic founder, and until his retirement from practice in 1960 headed it for many years. Others serving in this capacity were Dr. Percy Bartlett and Dr. Harry T. French. Today Dr. Sven M. Gundersen is chairman of the board of directors of the Hitchcock Clinic.
Even with generous gifts which made possible such additions as the Carter X-ray unit, in its own building; the Billings-Lee Resi- dence for nurses; more rooms for patients and doctors' offices; the Raven Convalescent Unit and many other improvements, the hos- pital's physical limitations still prevented its handling the in- creased demands put upon it. In the fall of 1947 a vigorous fund campaign was launched. This was generously responded to by in- dividuals, foundations and private and governmental agencies. The largest single contribution-one million dollars-was made by Mrs. Marianne Faulkner of Woodstock, Vermont, in memory of her husband, Edward Daniels Faulkner. Her outstanding gift made possible the completion of a three-million-dollar building program.
On February 2, 1952, Faulkner House was dedicated by Mrs. Faulkner at an impressive ceremony. Hundreds of people-many
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from miles away-came to see a transformed Mary Hitchcock Hos- pital. The ladies of the Auxiliary conducted tours, proudly show- ing the new spacious lobbies; the doctors' offices; operating suites; the large cheerful rooms for patients; the auditorium; the ample kitchen; and a bewildering array of modern additions. In a Cin- derella-like change, Hiram Hitchcock's gift to the community took on the shape befitting its vital role in the North Country region.
The original members of the Hitchcock Clinic had realized that local residents relied upon having their own family physicians. Consciously the group has endeavored to work together as a medi- cal unit to fill this need. The patient first sees the doctor for whom he asks; and it is the obligation of one staff member to consider the case as a whole, interpreting all data gathered by the staff. The results have been remarkably good. People living in Hanover and Norwich seem to feel that they do indeed have a family doctor, and one who can provide additional security because of the hospi- tal and clinic resources. Here are centered specialized skills and equipment normally found only in large city institutions. The tech- niques and apparatus required for cardio-pulmonary surgery, in- cluding "open heart surgery"; operating rooms where are carried out such intricate procedures as neurosurgery, plastic surgery, orthopedic surgery, broncho-esophagology, and other life saving measures provide residents of northern New England with an un- usual reassurance of health and longevity. In the medical field such facilities as a diagnostic hearing and speech center, a large and well-equipped department of physical medicine and rehabili- tation, a diagnostic and therapeutic radiology wing which includes the Cobalt-60 Teletherapy Unit, and other invaluable acquisi- tions have helped to make the Hitchcock Clinic the best known rural medical group practicing in the East.
Educational projects of the clinic and hospital have kept pace with other developments. Postgraduate training for interns and residents is conducted in cooperation with the Veterans Adminis- tration Hospital in White River Junction and the Medical School. In addition to the School of Nursing, which graduates about forty- five nurses a year, there are technology courses for students of lab- oratory medicine, X-ray and anesthesiology. Mary Hitchcock is a full accredited member of the American Hospital Association, and approved by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hos- pitals.
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In 1960 more than 8,800 patients came to Mary Hitchcock Me- morial Hospital from 184 towns in New Hampshire; from 141 in Vermont; from 24 other states, and eight foreign countries. More than 4,800 surgical operations were performed, and patient days of care numbered over 85,000. Such figures tell even the layman that more changes are taking place, and that other major expan- sions must come soon.
In the past, Nathan Smith's professional excellence had drawn to Hanover outstanding medical men. Too often these had later left the small town to practice in cities. Today the Hitchcock Clinic brings doctors of outstanding ability back to the rural en- vironment which many prefer, if they can combine country living with the practice of their medical and surgical specialties.
However remote the doctor traveling by horseback, carriage or sleigh over back roads may be to us of the present, the human tie of need and hope which brought patient and doctor together then exists unchanged today. From the beginning Hanover has felt affection and pride for its medical men, knowing that their achievements have gone far beyond the limits of the times they lived in and the small town they served. Perhaps, more deeply, Hanover has felt that in their generous efforts for others, these physicians have revealed the truth in the lines once quoted by Dr. Edmund Peaslee in his presidential address to the New Hamp- shire Medical Society:
"Life's more than breath and the quick round of blood;
'Tis the great spirit and the busy heart."
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18 The Churches of Hanover by Rebecca Gallagher Williams
B EFORE there was an organized church for the Hanover settlers along the Connecticut River, the early inhabitants worshiped in a log "hutt" by the river's edge across from Bush's Island, nearly opposite the mouth of the Pompanoosuc. During the summers of 1766 and 1767, the Reverend Knight Sex- ton of Colchester, Connecticut, preached, being paid by the Pro- prietors "eighteen pounds, twelve shillings, lawful money" for the first season according to a receipt signed by him. At this early time, too, occasional visits were made by the Reverend Peter Powers of Newbury and Haverhill, who was "accustomed to itin- erate along the river, when it was open, in a canoe." It was he who performed Hanover's first marriage ceremony, that of Isaac Wal- bridge and Hannah Smith, on May 22, 1768 as he "chanced to be passing on the river" at the time.
The Proprietors' concern with religion became a "town affair" in 1771 when the support of preaching was definitely assumed by the growing community. On July 17, twenty-five inhabitants-eleven males, fourteen females-were "by solemn covenant incorporated as The Church of Christ in Hanover." The town voted to raise £25 to support preaching and defray town charges for the ensuing year and to call a candidate to preach on probation. Thus began the church at Hanover Center.
In 1772 the town invited the Reverend Eden Burroughs of Killingly, Connecticut, to settle with them in the ministry. He re- ceived land reserved for the first minister as well as additional land given by individuals to induce his acceptance. His salary for the first year was £50 (half in money, half in grain), with £12 more for expenses of his removal from Connecticut. As the town did not yet have a meeting-house, Mr. Burroughs was installed at the barn of Isaac Bridgman.
A committee had been chosen at Town Meeting in 1771 "to pitch a place for a Meeting-house." Various locations were pro- posed, agreed upon, and changed, and plans for "the great Meet-
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ing-house" abandoned for a "house of less size" before work fi- nally began (1773) at the southeast corner of the parade on land belonging to Mr. John Wright. The construction of pews for this building was at first left to individual members. In 1778 it was voted that the town "take the pews now in the Meeting-house into their hands," making an appraisal of those already built. Apparently work on both the building and its interior continued intermittently for several years until a committee in 1782 was chosen "to finish the outside of the Meeting-house, lay the floors, and make some seats in the galleries." References to choosing "quiresters" at various times, and a provision "that vacant ground on the east side of the Meeting be allowed to the use of the singers" show that church members gave "due regard to the in- terest and accommodations for singing." Arrangements for the care of the Meeting-house itself were made annually by electing a "key keeper" who was charged with "the sweeping of the house."
The church does not seem to have had any distinct ecclesiastical connection until the organization of the Grafton Presbytery in 1773, when members expressed their preference for the Presby- terian form of church government. President Eleazar Wheelock became chairman of the Presbytery, while Mr. Burroughs was chosen scribe. Although busy in forming his own "family church" in the vicinity of the College, President Wheelock guided the affairs of the official town church to a considerable extent. He had been influential in its securing Mr. Burroughs after the Reverend Benjamin Pomeroy, the President's brother-in-law, had declined a call to the Center Church. He also succeeded in having Mr. Burroughs elected to the board of trustees of the College soon after his installation as the town's first minister.
President Wheelock, in his Narrative for 1771, describes the inti- mate beginnings of his college church. "The 23rd day of January was kept as a day of solemn fasting and prayer, on which I gath- ered a church in this college, and school, which consisted of twenty-seven members" (sixteen students, two or three employees of the Indian School, and members of the President's immediate family). ... "And a solemn and joyful day it was." This small group grew into a strong and active church presided over by President Wheelock until his death in 1779.
Services were held in the "old college building" on the Green (opposite the site of Reed Hall) which served as commons, chapel,
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and meeting-house. The west section of the building, divided in the center by a broad alley, had "15 pews and 10 slips" on one side reserved for the citizens for worship on the Sabbath. "Long slips," filling the other side, were assigned to the students for morning and evening prayers.
This old chapel and commons by 1789 had fallen into a ruinous state of repair and was pulled down during a student riot. Within a few months the so-called "New Chapel," pictured in the famous Dunham engraving, was erected just southwest of Dartmouth Hall. The 50' x 36' room, two stories high, was arched overhead, producing what was described as "a perfect whispering gallery." The College and the inhabitants in the vicinity shared the £300 cost of this chapel, the first separate building to be used by "the Church of Christ at Dartmouth College."
The people maintaining the college church had little concern with matters of the town church, and at an early date were ex- cused by the town from taxation "for the support of preaching." The college church, organized by President Wheelock, and the Church of Christ in Hanover, served by Mr. Burroughs, vied for the central position in the early life of the town.
The proprietors of the "Church at Dartmouth College," with the assistance of President Wheelock and the trustees, in 1794 projected a meeting-house to stand "on Mr. Lang's lot on the North side of the college green" to replace the "New Chapel" (1790) which the student body and residents had already out- grown. Plans called for a building "60' x 60' on the ground" with 30' posts and a "belcony" and slender spire. The cost, approxi- mately $5,000, was met almost entirely from the sale of pews "at auction at the inn of General Brewster."
A committee from the church, meeting with the trustees, agreed upon terms for the use of the "unappropriated" parts of the new meeting-house for the students at times of religious worship, com- mencements, and other public occasions and also for the appoint- ment and support of a minister. The building was dedicated on December 17, 1795, just short of the church's twenty-fifth anni- versary of its "imbodiment."
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