THE FORMATION OF A DEAF VARIETY OF THE HUMAN RAGE. 205 



The Broicn famili/, of Hmnikcr, R. II. — Tho ancestor of tliis family was one of tlie early 

 j)ioneers of New Hampshire. He left Stowe, in Massachusetts, somewhere about tlii^ year 1787, 

 and settled in neiiuiker, N. H. 



His deaf-mute sou Nahum (born in 1772) married a lieariny lady, by whom lie luid a sou and 

 daughter, both deaf and dumb. His sou Thomas, when he eutered the American Asylum as a 

 pupil, was recorded to have had "an aunt and two cousins deaf and dumb." (This branch of the 

 family has not yet been certainly identified.) Thomas married a deaf mute (Mary Smith, of Chil- 

 mark, Mass.), by whom he had two children, Thomas L. (a deaf-mute) and a hearing daughter who 

 died young. The son Thomas L. married a hearing lady (Almira G. Harte, of Burlington, Vt.), and 

 removed to Michigan, where he became one of the teachers of the Michigan Institution for the Deaf 

 and Dumb. I have no information concerning his descendants. 



The deaf mute daughter of Nahum married a hearing gentleman, Mr. Bela M. Swett, of lien- 

 niker, N. H., by whom she had three sons (Thomas B., William B., and Nahum). The eldest son, 

 Thomas, was born deaf; the second son, William, was born deaf in one ear, and lost the hearing 

 of the other in childhood from measles; and the third son, Nahum, could hear. The eldest son, 

 Thomas, married a deafmnte, and his three children (Mitchell, Charlotte E., and Mary S.) are 

 deaf-mutes. The second son, William, married a deaf-mute (Margaret Harrington) by whom he 

 had five children, all of whom could hear at birth, but two of them (Persis H. and Lucy Maria) 

 lost their hearing so early in life as to neces.sitate their education in institutions for the deaf and 

 dumb. Two others died young and one has retained her hearing into adult life. The eldest 

 daughter (Persis, born 1852) has married a deaf-mute. It will thus be seen that three families 

 of deaf-mutes have sprung from Nahum Brown, and in two of these the deafness has descended 

 to the fourth generation. In the other family it descended to the third generation, beyond which 

 I have been unable to trace the family. The deaf-mute connections of the Brown family have only 

 been partially worked out. 



1. The wife of William B. Swett was Margaret Harrington, who had a deaf-mute brother, 

 Patrick, who married a deaf-mute (Sarah Worcester), who had a twin deaf-mute brother (Frank), who 

 married a deaf-mute (Almira Huntington), who had a deaf-mute sister (Sophia M.), who married a 

 deaf-mute (James R. Hines).* Frank Worcester, one of the twin deaf-mutes has a deaf-mute son — 

 the other twin (Susan) has a child who hears. 



2. On the other side of the family, the wife of Thomas Brown (Mary Smith, of Ohilmark, 

 Martha's Vineyard) had a hearing brother (Capt. Austin Smith), who had two deaf-mute children 

 (a son and a daughter). The son (Freeman N.) married a deaf-mute (Deidama West).t Mrs. Brown 

 also had a deaf-mute sister (Sally), who "married a hearing man of Martha's Vineyard (Hariff 

 Mayhew) who had 5 deaf-mute brothers and sisters." 



The Lovejoy family. — This is another New England family in which deafness has been handed 

 down through four generations. Benjamin Lovejoy, a deaf-mute, of Sidney, Me., is recorded in 



• The father and mother of James R. Hiiies (Isaac and Sophia) were both deaf-mutes, and he h.as a deaf-mute 

 son (Eddie), and a cousin deaf and dumb. His mother (Sophia Rowhiy) also has a deaf-mute cousin. 



t They had a deaf-mute daughter (Lovina). Deidama West had a deaf-uiute motlier, Deidama (Tiltou) West, and two 

 maternal uncles deaf and dumb (Franklin and Zeno Tiltou) who married deaf-mnti's. She also had three brothers and 

 one sister deaf ami dun\b (George, Benjamin, .Joseph L., and Rebecca). George married a deaf-mute (Sabrina Rogers), 

 and has a deaf-mute child (Eva S. West). Heujamiu married a hearing lady (Mary Hathaway). I have no informa- 

 tion concerning their otlspring. Rebecca married a deaf-mute (Eugene Trask), who had a dcaf-mnte brother (John 

 Trask) who married a deaf-mute. George Trask, a deaf-mute, born about 1880, is probably the son of Eugeue 

 Trask and Rebecca West. 



