Wood, Edwin O. History of Genesee County, Michigan. Volume 1. Indianapolis, Indiana: Federal Publishing Co., 1916.

Page 592

State School for the Deaf

Of the state educational institutions, a school was early located at Flint for the deaf, dumb and blind. To Hon. E. H. Thomson belongs the honor of introducing, in 1848, the act which resulted in establishing this splendid school. The first board of trustees comprised of the following: Elon Farnsworth, of Wayne; Gen. Charles C. Hascall, of Genesee; Charles H. Taylor, of Kent; Charles E. Stewart, of Kalamazoo, and John P. Cook, of Hillsdale.

The board decided upon Flint as the most eligible location. Twenty acres of ground were donated by Col. T. B. W. Stockton to the trustees for a site and three thousand dollars was subscribed by the citizens. Charles H. Palmer was, in December, 1850, appointed as principal.

In 1857 the Legislature amended the act of 1848 so that the institution should be entirely independent of the Kalamazoo insane asylum, which had been up to that time in charge of the same board. Under the amended act the first board for the Flint institution consisted of James B. Walker, Benjamin Pierson and John LeRoy. B. M. Fay was chosen principal and organized the school work proper in 1857. The subsequent history of this school has been authoritatively sketched by Superintendent Francis D. Clark, whose words may here appropriately find a place:

In their visit to the other states in search of information the trustees had been favorably impressed with the Rev. Barnabas Maynard Fay, an instructor in the Indiana institution for the blind, and when they decided to open the school they invited him to