Mason Fitch Cogswell

His mother died when he was 11 years old; after this his father moved to New Scotland Parish in Windham and later remarried.

[2] Cogswell was left in the care of Samuel Huntington, president of the Continental Congress and governor of Connecticut.

He studied medicine with his brother James at the soldiers' hospital in New York City during the American Revolution, and eventually became one of the best known surgeons in the country.

Cogswell eventually had his neighbor Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet travel to Europe to learn and bring back methods in instruction for the deaf.

He then traveled to France, where the educational system instead focused on use of French Sign Language as an instructional method.