One item in the 200th-year celebration exhibit is a two-cornered hat worn by President James Monroe. When Monroe visited the school, students saw his hat and improvised a sign for "president" that is still used.
The Description: This oil painting portrait of the fifth U.S. President James Monroe visited the Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons on Monday, June 23, 1817.
President Monroe's deaf grandson, James Monroe Gouverneur attended the New York Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb.
An American student, John St. George Randolph, enrolled at Braidwood Academy for the Deaf, England, in 1805 when he was 13 and sailed with Senator James Monroe to England. A few years later, he was the first Deaf American pupil to enroll at the Paris School for the Deaf under Abbe Sicard.
From a book chapter (below). The Life and Times of T.H. Gallaudet.
In 1806, Monroe had conducted a deaf Virginia boy, St. George Tucker Randolph, across the Atlantic to the Braidwood school in London. The Randolph boy was a nephew of John Randolph, a congressman from Virginia and sometime political ally of his cousin Thomas Jefferson. The boy was also a cousin of the deaf Bolling children whose father would soon be attempting to establish a school in Virginia with John Braidwood as teacher. Upon arriving in London with young Randolph, Monroe personally visited the Braidwood school, and he wrote Congressman Randolph of his good opinion of the Braidwoods, and also of Sicard, whose school he knew of only by reputation. After installing the boy in the Braidwood school, Monroe visited Paris, became convinced of the superiority of the French pedagogy, and transferred St. George Randolph to Paris, where the boy studied with Laurent Clerc. See Stanislaus M. Hamilton, ed., Writings of James Monroe, vol. 4, pp. 414, 480, and A. G. Bell, “Historical Notes,” vol.2, pp. 385-90. https://albert.rit.edu/record=b375
Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet's father, Peter W. Gallaudet was a patriotic soldier in the American Revolutionary War in 1776. He knew General Washington and Lt. James Monroe.
Rev. Gallaudet’s ship passport was signed by two founding Fathers of the United States, James Monroe, the Secretary of State, and James Madison, the 4th President of the United States. Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet had his first-ship passport in his pocket. The passport described his height as 5 feet and 6 1/2 inches, with dark gray eyes and a straight nose. He walked on the deck among a famous author Washington Irving and they went onto the small ship “Mexico” under the commander, S. Weeks on May 25, 1815. He waved down Peter’s family, Dr. Cogswell, and his Deaf daughter Alice. Also, the English troops entered the ship. Their voyage from New York City to Liverpool, England for 32 days.
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