Oliver Wendell Holmes Slept – and Taught – Here

DARTMOUTH'S Phi Beta Kappa Society, casting its eye about for someone to deliver the Phi Beta Kappa Poem to the graduating class of 1839, found their poet in a newly appointed member of the faculty. The gentleman, fresh out of Harvard Medical School, was coming to Hanover to assume the Chair of Anatomy and Physiology at Dartmouth Medical School. But it was as a poet, not as a physician, that he made his first appearance.

Early in June, Oliver Wendell Holmes had left Boston, come by rail to Lowell and then made the rest of the trip by stage. It was the same route to Hanover that had been followed by Longfellow in 1837 and Emerson in 1838, and it had given Holmes an opportunity to observe -

These tranquil shades, where Nature unconfined Flings her green drapery on the mountain wind.

Holmes lodged at the Dartmouth Hotel at the corner of Main and Wheelock. The Hanover Inn occupies the same spot today.

Nineteenth century Commencement audiences were made of sterner stuff than their counterparts today. The audience of July 24, 1839 had listened to Professor Edwards A. Park of Andover, the orator for the Theological Society, discuss the "liberal and catholic spirit which dwells in the bosom of the true Christian alone."

There followed an address by Alexander Everett, brother of the distinguished and famous Edward Everett, sponsored by the College Literary Societies, on "the character and influence of German literature."

The Reverend Calvin E. Stowe whose wife, Harriet Beecher, was yet "a maiden of eighteen," presented a sermon.

It is reported that when Holmes ascended to the platform he looked more like a member of the Class of '39 than a Phi Beta Kappa poet. According to TheBoston Daily Atlas, Dr. Holmes delivered "the most beautiful production, and that which was listened to with the most pleasure." Holmes described the Connecticut River,

Loitering down from its mountain fastness like a great lord Swallowing up the small proprietary rivulets very quietly as it goes.

His leisurely trip up from Lowell had given Holmes time to see and reflect. His poem is filled with the freshness and enthusiasm of discovery. Hanover, the town, with its stores and soda-fountains, is as exciting to him as the neighboring hills. Though Holmes had travelled extensively even before his twenty-ninth birthday and his appointment to the Dartmouth faculty, he was very much impressed with Hanover and New Hampshire.

What sort of a man was this short (5'4"), young (29) gentleman who captivated an audience so that it listened with "almost breathless attention"?

Oliver Wendell Holmes had been born in Cambridge, Mass., on August 29, 1809. He attended Harvard and was graduated with the "famous" class of 1829, a class which, according to one observer, "derived at least half of its fame from the annual eulogies from the pen of its poet, O.W. Holmes." From Harvard College Holmes went on to Harvard Law School. He didn't stay there long. After one year he decided that science, not jurisprudence, was what interested him; and so, after some private instruction by a Boston physician, he set off for Europe. The year was 1833 and the fashion was to make the rounds of hospitals and medical schools, gleaning the best from each.

Holmes became interested in microscopes and brought several back with him to this country. His interest in devising new and better apparatus to make classroom instruction easier led him to design a new type of microscope. Up to the time a "multiple-seater" type of viewer had been in general use. It had half a dozen barrels arranged in a circle and all focussed 011 an object simultaneously. Besides making it difficult to get a proper light source, the peculiar design of the microscope made each student see the same object from a different angle. It was an unwieldy instrument.

At Dartmouth Holmes designed a microscope that was specially suited for classroom demonstrations. It was light and it was mobile. It could be passed around from student to student easily and it yielded a good image. Holmes' modification made the microscope a much more valuable classroom teaching tool, both here and at medical schools elsewhere.

By 1836 he was back in Boston and studying at the Harvard Medical School. His studies occupied a part of his time and research for his dissertation for the M.D. degree the rest. That same year he delivered the Phi Beta Kappa poem at Harvard and he also composed several prize-winning essays. His work was original and perceptive but much of it went unnoticed. The essays were not published until years later.

The young doctor lived at 2 Central Court, Boston, in the boarding house of Mrs. Brown. He was not yet the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," not yet the great poet or the Professor. He was just a young doctor to whom his landlady used to recommend patients.

Not far from Mrs. Brown's was the Broad Street Station of the Boston Dispensary where Holmes spent a good part of his time. His practice was not large. He had two years of study abroad and two substantial publications to his credit. His reputation was sufficiently large for Dr. Nathan Potter of the University of Maryland to offer him a chair of surgery in the Medical School. Holmes considered the possibility of accepting, but his attachment to New England and the counsel of friends decided him against it. Dr. Dixi Crosby of Dartmouth was one of the most influential of the counsellors.

IN 1837 Dartmouth Medical School was reorganized, a new Department of Physiology was created, and Holmes was offered the appointment of Professor of Anatomy and Physiology. On July is, 1838, Holmes wrote to Professor Mussey expressing the honor he felt at being offered the Professorship and the desire he had to accept it. The letter is in the possession of the College.

Holmes wrote from Boston to Usher Parsons, a Providence physician, on August 7, 1838:

I have just had official notice of my appointment as Professor of Anatomy in Dartmouth College. Mussey and Oliver quit after this course. Mussey's office is divided - I have anatomy - a N. Hampshire man - Crosby I believe, has surgery, and Bartlett of Lowell has Physiology Sec in Oliver's place - of course I am not obliged to abide there except during lectures. I think this is a very excellent appointment and as I do not lecture until next August I shall have plenty of time to get ready.

Yours affecty OWH

The appointment at Dartmouth meant fourteen weeks away from "the hub of the solar system" and it meant also $400. The salary for Professors was $800 a year, but the figure depended upon the size of the enrollment as well. Since Holmes only lectured for one semester he received half pay. He never had any difficulty filling his lecture room.

The Crosby he mentions in the letter to Parsons was Dr. Dixi Crosby, one of Holmes' close friends in Hanover. Crosby bought a house facing the green in 1838 and lived there until his death in 1884. The family then sold the house to the College for use as a dormitory, but in more recent years Crosby Hall has been converted to administrative offices.

That Holmes replaced Mussey meant that Holmes had to bring to the College what Mussey took when he left - namely, the Museum. Most of the exhibits of the Medical Museum were Mussey's preparations which went with him from Hanover to Ohio, where he founded the Miami Medical College.. Holmes was mindful of the responsibility he had to restock the Museum. One of his first bills to the College was for expenses incurred in purchasing bones and other demonstration material. A labelled dissection of a child's head done by Holmes is still in possession of the Medical School.

Besides supplying specimens and replenishing the Museum, Holmes was asked, in April 1839, to prepare the Medical School's annual circular. And in the same year he was co-editor of a revised edition of Hall's Practice of Medicine.

One of the tickets admitting students to his lectures is in the Archives of Baker Library. It reads

DARTMOUTH COLLEGE Lectures on ANATOMY & PHYSIOLOGY

Admit Mr. Charles D. Cleavland

Oliver W. Holmes, Professor

August 8, 1839

His lectures were appealing to the students, a tangible asset in a day when teachers' renumeration depended on the size of their classes. He laced his lectures with jokes which faithful former students have set down for posterity.

He gave an examination to his class by requiring them to take a bone from a bag and then identify it and describe it. He would then state, "They can't do this at Harvard."

Holmes lodged at the Dartmouth Hotel for three months in 1839 and again in 1840. One can imagine his first view of the campus at Commencement in 1839. In those days Commencement was a weeklong circus, and "Dr. Holmes loved a circus." Longfellow had described it in 1837-

Under the great maple trees near the hotel was drawn up during the day a line of pedlar's carts; from which the said pedlars sold their wares at auction, with loud outcry and such wit as they were masters of ...

One author tells that Holmes looked so young at the time of his arrival in Hanover that he was asked if he had come to join the freshman class.

The Phi Beta Kappa Poem at Dartmouth was prepared by a man who already had a considerable amount of poetry in print. His first volume, Poemsby Oliver Wendell Holmes, had appeared in 1836 (the same year he composed his dissertation for the M.D. and several papers for the Boylston Prize competition). In 1831 a small bi-weekly paper called The Amateur had printed some verse above the initials "OWH." TheBoston Daily Advertiser had printed "Old Ironsides" in 1834, and beneath it only the letter "H" to identify the author. Holmes had also published in New England Galaxy and The Collegian, the Harvard undergraduate periodical.

As Holmes' medical career began to demand more and more of his time he gradually gave up much of his writing. He also had to refuse invitations to speak because of the press of work. Toward the end of his life, however, the situation reversed itself and he devoted much more time to his writing.

His fame as a teacher and poet was such that once when riding near Williams College he was stopped by the students who demanded a speech. Standing up in his wagon he began,

"Gentlemen of Dartmouth..."

Holmes was at Dartmouth for two years. Much of his correspondence and papers of that period is in possession of Baker Library. In 1841 he went back to Boston to devote full time to his expanding medical practice.

In 1847 he became Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Harvard Medical School, and in 1871, when a separate Department of Physiology was created, he became Parkman Professor of Anatomy. His duties at Harvard became so numerous that he used to say, "Instead of filling a chair at the University, I really occupy a settee!"

In 1858 Holmes returned to Hanover as the principal Commencement Day speaker. Rufus Choate had been scheduled originally to give the address but had taken ill and Holmes agreed to speak in his stead. He remarked that he could hardly be expected to fill the place of the absent speaker (Choate was a very large man) but he would try to "rattle around in it."

The Dartmouth describes his last stay in Hanover that Commencement night. He was staying with Professor Longfellow and in the evening, as he sat out on the balcony, the students gathered in the street to serenade him. They sang until he agreed to stand up and tell them some stories about himself.

From iB6O on, writing began to occupy more and more o£ his time until eventually it began to exclude his medical activities.

When he died in 1894 the students of Dartmouth Medical School voted a resolution expressing their "sincere feelings of regret" and their "veneration and respect" for Dr. Holmes.

Holmes as a Young Man