Written by Payton James, in collaboration with the 2026 Mansfield Training School Memorial and Museum Research Team. Questions or comments may be directed to paytonjames231@gmail.com.
I stumbled upon Mystic Oral School (MOS) by accident, months into working on the Mansfield Training School Memorial and Museum project. Despite studying ASL and Deaf Studies and living just minutes from Mystic, I had never heard of it, just as I had never heard of Mansfield Training School as a UConn student. It left me wondering: what else have I missed?
The Mystic Oral School’s roots trace back to 1826, when Jonathan Whipple’s son Enoch was born Deaf and Whipple developed his own method for teaching him to speak (Mystic Oral School Advocates, n.d.). That began a family history of Deaf education that went on to span three generations (link: Bell post). Years later, Whipple’s grandson, Zerah Whipple, founded the Whipple Home School in 1869 to teach Deaf children through oral methods and lipreading (Mystic Oral School Advocates, n.d.). In 1875, the school moved to Mystic with state funding and transitioned from a small private operation into a residential institution housed in a former sea captain’s mansion overlooking the Mystic River (Mystic Oral School Advocates, n.d.).
For the next two decades, MOS operated using the oral model, which meant sign language had no place in the classroom. Families paid tuition, even though the nearby American School for the Deaf offered free education (Knot So Loud, 2021), while the state gradually increased its funding and oversight (Mystic Oral School Advocates, n.d.). That oversight came to a head in 1895, sixteen years after Zerah Whipple’s death in 1879, when the state investigated the school and found unspecified “irregularities” (Mystic Oral School Advocates, n.d.). The investigation prompted Alexander Graham Bell to step in (link the Bell/eugenics post). In 1897, he published The Mystic Oral School: An Argument in Its Favor, defending the school and describing oral and sign methods as “radically and irreconcilably opposed” (Bell, 1897). To make his case, he compared MOS with the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, which used sign language (Bell, 1897). The following year, the school was formally incorporated as the Mystic Oral School for the Deaf, its oral approach intact (Mystic Oral School Advocates, n.d.).
The school continued to grow from there. In 1919, the state purchased the school, turning it into a state-run institution (Mystic Oral School Advocates, n.d.). Enrollment rose from 34 students in 1898 to 161 by 1942 (Mystic Oral School Advocates, n.d.). The campus grew along with enrollment, adding dormitories, a nursery, a senior high school, a gym and pool, an auditorium, and staff housing for families who lived on-site (Mystic Oral School Advocates, n.d.).
Bell’s involvement with MOS was part of a larger effort to discourage the formation of Deaf communities (Bell, 1884), yet MOS eventually became a community of its own. Staff families lived on campus, and “block parents” supervised the dorms from inside the administrative buildings. Students grew up alongside teachers’ children and joined the same recreation programs, and, living together in the dorms, they grew up alongside one another (Knot So Loud, 2021). For many of the students and staff, the campus was home as much as it was a school.
The state closed MOS as a school in 1980 (Mystic Oral School Advocates, n.d.). The site was repurposed as the Mystic Education Center and used by a range of organizations, including Groton’s Parks and Recreation Department, a daycare, a dance program, a computer business, and firefighter training (Groton Economic Development, n.d.). It did not fully close until 2011 (Groton Economic Development, n.d.). Since then, the buildings have sat abandoned, drawing urban explorers while continuing to fall into disrepair (Abandoned School for the Deaf in CT, n.d.; Knot So Loud, 2021).
The community that formed around the institution outlasted both the school and the campus. Former students and staff still return to the property (Knot So Loud, 2021; Mystic Oral School Alumni, n.d.). Others stay connected through alumni networks, such as a Facebook group where former students share ASL videos, photos, and memories that keep the site alive even as its buildings decay (Mystic Oral School Alumni, n.d.). The alumni of a school that kept sign language out of its classrooms now remember it in ASL.
MOS reminded me of Mansfield Training School. Both institutions grew into something other than what they were built to be. They became places where people formed friendships, identities, and communities that lasted long after the institutions closed. MOS was founded to discourage Deaf community, yet it brought together generations of Deaf people who grew up side by side and still stay connected through return visits, online spaces, and shared memory.
Today, the buildings sit empty on a 77-acre state-owned property (Groton Economic Development, n.d.). Many redevelopment proposals have been put forward, but none has been completed (Mystic Oral School Advocates, n.d.). The school closed decades ago, but the site’s meaning did not disappear with it. As Connecticut decides what comes next for the property, it’s worth asking whether the people most connected to its history should have a say. What should happen to these grounds now? Should they be returned to, or at least stewarded by, Connecticut’s Deaf community? The land may never have belonged to the Deaf community, but the community that formed there undeniably was.
References
Abandoned school for the deaf in CT [Online forum post]. (n.d.). Reddit, r/urbanexploration. https://www.reddit.com/r/urbanexploration/comments/1t1c90t/abandoned_school_for_the_deaf_in_ct/
Bell, A. G. (1884). Memoir upon the formation of a deaf variety of the human race. Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, 2, 177–262.
Bell, A. G. (1897). The Mystic Oral School: An argument in its favor. Gibson Bros. https://wellcomecollection.org/works/uqhby288
Groton Economic Development. (n.d.). What is happening at the Mystic Education Center? https://www.exploremoregroton.com/mystic-education-center
Knot So Loud. (2021, January 8). Mystic Deaf history [Blog post and reader comments]. https://www.knotsoloud.com/blog/2021/1/8/mystic-deaf-history
Mystic Oral School Advocates. (n.d.). Mystic Oral School history. https://www.mysticoralschooladvocates.org/mystic-oral-school-history
Mystic Oral School Alumni. (n.d.). [Facebook group]. Facebook.