The College hosted a ceremony yesterday afternoon to dedicate a plaque in memory of the recently razed Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital.
Representatives from the Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital and the Lahey Hitchcock Clinic, in conjunction with College officials, gathered and gave speeches to honor the hospital, built in 1890, which was demolished last fall.
MHMH and LHC moved to the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon in October 1991, so the old hospital facilities have been vacated for the past five years.
About 40 people gathered outside 3 Rope Ferry Road to witness the ceremony.
DHMC Emeritus Board Chair John Hennessey spoke about the purposes of the plaque and said the plaque was intended for two audiences.
"It is intended for the old-timers, those who miss what was once here ... and the newcomers, those who never knew what was here," he said.
"Class of 2000, this plaque is for you, too, and for the future," he continued.
In an interview with The Dartmouth after the ceremony, MHMH President James Varnum said the ceremony commemorates the "memories and roots" of the people who worked at the old hospital.
"It's nice to have the plaque to recognize and celebrate that time," he said. "This ceremony brings closure to the move [to DHMC] and the changes implied by it."
The plaque is located at 3 Rope Ferry Road, which currently houses some of the College's administrative departments, but was once the west wing of the original hospital. It sits above the cornerstone of the original hospital. The cornerstone was taken from its original location and moved to its current one before the demolition, according to a College press release.
When the cornerstone was removed, workers found a small cavity which held a copper time capsule, Director of Facilities Planning Gordie DeWitt said in the concluding speech of the ceremony.
Inside the time capsule, they found original blueprints for MHMH, and documents and letters from Hiram Hitchcock, who funded the hospital construction in memory of his wife, he said.
They also found photos of Hitchcock's rendering of the hospital, news articles about the construction and a list of the first overseers of the hospital, DeWitt said.
The time capsule and its contents will be on permanent display at DHMC, according to a College press release.
DeWitt said the College would create a new time capsule to be placed behind the cornerstone in the original cavity, to replace the old one.
The new capsule will contain copies of the contents of the original capsule, a CD-ROM with photos of MHMH and the implosion of the building, and a video of MHMH's 100th anniversary ceremony and yesterday's ceremony, he said.
It will also contain blueprints of the hospital before it was demolished, site plans for the area where MHMH once stood, news articles concerning the move to DHMC, and information about Dartmouth College, DeWitt said.
College President James Freedman and Lahey Hitchcock Clinic President Dr. Stephen K. Plume also spoke at the ceremony.
