Swett, William Benjamin

Born at Henniker, NH, to deaf parents; deafened as a small child; student at the American School for the Deaf, 1839-1842. Carpenter, woodcarver, White Mountains guide, business agent, founder (1879) and superintendent of the New England Industrial School for Deaf-Mutes, Marblehead, MA (now the Beverly School for the Deaf). Wrote Adventures of a Deaf-Mute in the White Mountains (1869). Married Margaret Harrington, a deaf Irish immigrant; two of their five children were deaf. The museum of the Henniker Historical Society is named for him.