Holdings Information
Bibliographic Record Display
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Author/Creator:Cogswell, Mason Fitch, 1761-1830.
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Title:Mason Fitch Cogswell papers, 1772-1853 (bulk 1790-1830).
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Physical Description:1.59 linear feet (5 boxes)
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Links:View a description and listing of collection contents in the finding aid
View a selection of digital images in the Beinecke Library's Digital Images Online database
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Yale Holdings
Holdings Record Display
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Notes:In English.
Gift of Grace Cogswell Root, 1925 and 1926.
One diary: gift of the Misses Tully, 1896.
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Organization:Organized into three series: I. Correspondence, 1772-1830. II. Writings, 1788-1853. III. Other Papers, 1783-1830.
- Access and use:This material is open for research.
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Biographical / Historical note:Mason Fitch Cogswell, an American physician and surgeon, was born on September 28, 1761, in Canterbury, Connecticut, the third son of the Reverend James and Alice Fitch Cogswell. An 1780 graduate of Yale College, he studied medicine with his brother James Cogswell, first in Stamford, Connecticut, and later in New York City. In 1789, Cogswell established a medical office in Hartford, where he practiced until his death in 1830. Cogswell and his wife Mary Ledyard Cogswell had five children including their daughter Alice, who became deaf as a child. In an effort to educate Alice and other deaf residents of the state, Cogswell enlisted the aid of Laurent Clerc and T. H. Gallaudet to establish in Hartford in 1817 the Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons, now the American School for the Deaf, the country's first permanent school for the deaf.
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Summary:The papers primarily consist of correspondence received by Mason Fitch Cogswell from family, friends, and professional colleagues. Prominent among the correspondents are Cogswell's brother Samuel Cogswell, his nephew James Lloyd Cogswell of Long Island, New York, his friend Theodore Dwight, the Caribbean planter Charles Joseph Sibert, Vicomte de Cornillon, and deaf education pioneers Laurent Clerc and T. H. Gallaudet. Other colleagues in the papers are the Reverend Ebenezer Fitch, Connecticut congressman John Davenport, inventor Apollos Kinsley, and a number of American physicians including Oliver Fisk of Worcester, Henry Fish and E. H. Smith of New York, and Joseph Strong of Philadelphia. Notably, there are several letters from Cogswell's many female friends such as Nancy Roy Fox and Delia Dwight Porter. Also in the correspondence is a fair copy of a letter to Cogswell's father James Cogswell from British author William Cowper. Other papers include two diaries kept by Cogswell in 1788 and 1791, financial and legal papers, and a group of manuscript medical remedies and treatments.
Accompanying the papers is a small group of printed items including two copies of a 1793 form issued by Norwich, Connecticut, publishers Bushnell & Hubbard seeking subscribers for two proposed books by Michael Martel, The French Scholar's Diversion, and Martel's Virgil. The forms were signed by several residents of Hartford, New London, and other towns in Connecticut, but the volumes were never published.
- Format:Archives or Manuscripts
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Indexes/Finding aids:Finding aid available.
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Cite as:Mason Fitch Cogswell Papers. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
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Subjects:Breed, Shub. (Shubael), 1759-1840.
Clerc, Laurent, 1785-1869.
Cogswell, James, 1720-1807.
Cogswell, James, 1746-1792.
Cogswell, Mary Ledyard.
Cogswell, Mason Fitch, 1761-1830.
Cogswell, Samuel, 1754-1790.
Cowper, William, 1731-1800.
Davenport, John, 1752-1830.
Doolittle, Mark, 1781-1855.
Dwight, Nathaniel, 1770-1831.
Dwight, Theodore, 1764-1846.
Fish, Henry.
Fisk, Oliver.
Fitch, Ebenezer, 1756-1833.
Fox, Nancy Roy.
Gallaudet, T. H. (Thomas Hopkins), 1787-1851.
Goddard, Calvin, 1768-1842.
Kinsley, Apollos.
Martel, Michael.
Morgan, Titus, 1776-1811.
Porter, Fedelia Dwight, 1708-1847.
Smith, E. H. (Elihu Hubbard), 1771-1798.
Storrs, Seth, 1756-1837.
Strong, Joseph, 1770-1812.
Academy of Medicine of Philadelphia.
Bushnell & Hubbard.
Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Society of Brothers in Unity (Yale College)
Deaf--Education--Connecticut.
Medicine--Practice--United States.
Physicians--Connecticut.
Physicians--Connecticut--Hartford.
Physicians--New York (State)
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Genre/Form:Diaries--Connecticut--18th century.
Prescriptions--United States--18th century.
Prescriptions--United States--19th century.
Subscription lists (Publishing)--Connecticut--Norwich--1793.
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Occupation:Physicians Connecticut Hartford 18th century.
Physicians Connecticut Hartford 19th century.
Link to this page: https://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/11204726