[2] It was founded April 15, 1817, in Hartford, Connecticut, by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, Mason Cogswell, and Laurent Clerc and became a state-supported school later that year.

Cogswell prevailed upon the young Gallaudet (who had recently graduated from Yale University's School of Divinity and had begun studying at Andover).

After being rebuffed by the Braidwoods, Gallaudet turned to the Parisian French schoolteachers of the famous school for the Deaf in Paris, where he successfully recruited Laurent Clerc.

On the strength of Clerc's reputation, the ASD was incorporated as the "Connecticut Asylum for the Education of Deaf and Dumb Persons," as it was originally known, in May 1816.

When it opened in 1817, there were seven students enrolled: Alice Cogswell, George Loring, Wilson Whiton, Abigail Dillingham, Otis Waters, John Brewster, and Nancy Orr.