Mary Maynard Hitchcock (1834-1887)

Hitchcock grew up in Drewsville, New Hampshire, and, following a long courtship, she married Hiram Hitchcock in 1858. Hiram’s family had moved to Drewsville in 1842. Following their wedding, the couple moved to New York City, where Hiram, with two partners, established the Fifth Avenue Hotel. During their successful hotelier years, the couple entertained many famous people and influential political figures, including Grover Cleveland and Theodore Roosevelt.

In the 1860s and ’70s, Hiram went into semiretirement to travel and follow his interest in archaeology. During this period the Hitchcocks lived in the Hitchcock mansion on what is now Tuck Drive, where Dartmouth’s Thayer and Tuck schools are located. Hiram was very active in local government and business and served as a representative to the New Hampshire State Legislature. He was also president of both Dartmouth National and Dartmouth Savings banks, a trustee of Dartmouth College, and a trustee of the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, (now the University of New Hampshire).

When Mary died in 1887, Hiram was searching for an appropriate tribute. Colleagues suggested that there was a great need for a medical facility to aid Dartmouth Medical School’s efforts. Thus Hiram Hitchcock decided that a hospital would be a fitting memorial for his beloved wife.

Perhaps the most moving tribute to Mary Hitchcock’s life can be found in the following hand-written letter composed by Hiram Hitchcock and placed in the original MHMH cornerstone.

This box, is, this seventeenth day of July 1890, placed in the cornerstone of the Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital at Hanover, N.H. This Hospital, at the time of its completion in 1891, will perhaps be the most perfect of its kind then in existence. It is a memorial of one of the noblest and best of God’s gifts to the human race.

God grant that this Hospital may be all, and more than all, that she would have it to be. She was my life, here. May God in his infinite mercy unite us again.