ABSTRACT

The Deaf-World in the United States has major roots in a triangle of New England Deaf

communities that flourished early in the past century: Henniker, New Hampshire;

Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts; and Sandy River Valley, Maine. The social fabric of

these communities differed, a reflection of language and marriage practices that were

underpinned, we hypothesize, by differences in genetic patterning. To evaluate that

hypothesis, this chapter uses local records and newspapers, genealogies, the silent press,

Edward Fay’s (1898) census of Deaf marriages, and Alexander Graham Bell’s (1888)

notebooks to illuminate the Henniker Deaf community for the first time, and it builds on

prior work concerning the Vineyard community.