well. He was for a time city physician of
Manchester, and came near being elected its mayor. His health having
failed in some measure, he removed to Norwich, Vt., the home of his
wife's family. For ten years he lived in Norwich and Hanover, engaged
in such teaching and practice and study as his health would permit.
When our country called for aid in the war of the rebellion he
believed it his duty to consecrate his knowledge of Medicine and skill
in Surgery to her, and to the noble men who exposed themselves to
sickness and wounds in her cause. Upon entering the service he was
immediately put in charge of the Columbian College Hospital, in
Washington. He assumed the responsibilities of the position with the
determination that the men who came under his charge 'should have
their rights,' and faithfully did he carry into execution his purpose.
He remained in charge of this Hospital until after the close of the
war and the sick and wounded were able to be transferred to their
homes. The next year he was appointed professor of General and
Military Surgery and Hygiene in the National Medical College, it being
the Medical Department of Columbian College, which position he filled
until 1870. On the opening of the State Agricultural College here, an
institution in which he was particularly interested, he was appointed
professor of Animal and Vegetable Physiology, in which, and in Natural
History in the Academic Department, he taught almost literally till
the day of his decease. When unable to meet his classes in their
recitation-room he received them in his own study, and there heard
their recitations, the last less than forty-eight hours before his
death. Thus he fell 'with the harness on.'"

THAYER SCHOOL OF CIVIL ENGINEERING.

Of this department Professor Fletcher says:

"Between the years 1867 and 1871, General Sylvanus Thayer, of
Braintree, Massachusetts, by donations amounting in the aggregate to
seventy thousand dollars, made provision for establishing in
connection with the college a special course of instruction in Civil
Engineering. 'The venerable donor, himself a distinguished officer of
the U. S. Corps of Engineers, was moved to this munificence, not only
by a regard for his Alma Mater, but also by a desire to provide for
young men possessing requisite ability a thorough and exclusively
professional training.'

"The school was organized during the winter and spring of 1871, by
Professor Robert Fletcher, under