Hometown History #5: A College, a Library, and a Church are but a Part of Oliver Dean’s Legacy

Above: The Oliver Dean House, currently on the market, is a link to one of Franklin’s greatest citizens.

The Name of Dean Academy, Dean Junior College, and Dean College, in their respective historical periods, have always occasioned a little confusion for newcomers, given the common use of Dean as an academic title.

In fact, our Dean College was named in honor of its principal early benefactor, Oliver Dean, a man of many achievements.

As Vicki Earls at the Franklin Library explains, he was also a real medical doctor, and much else beside.

Born in Franklin, February 18, 1783 to Seth and Edena Pond Dean. His birth home was near Indian Rock and, unfortunately, no longer exists. When he was in grade school, according to Ms. Earls, the teacher made them create their own motto and his was "forgive others' faults, but never your own".

Like so many others of his era, his fate was influenced by his interaction with Rev. Nathaneal Emmons, the long-serving Congregational minister of the town who held to a strict, hellfire and brimstone view of this life and the next.

While he was studying medicine (and boarding) with local doctor James Mann, he started paying social visits to Deliverance Emmons (known as Delia), one of the Reverend’s daughters. In fact, the pair seemed to have formed a very strong attachment.

Alas, Massachusetts author and local busybody, Hannah Adams was also boarding with Dr. Mann and knew Dean was seeing Delia Emmons. Adams was good friends with the Emmons family, so she asked Rev. Emmons what he thought of his daughter dating Oliver Dean: "I don't like it at all!" said Dr. Emmons emphatically, "What, my Delia, the brightest and most talented of my flock, the one, who of all my children inherits the most of her father's traits, marry Seth Dean's son! I tell you, I don't like it at all!" Emmons also disliked doctor Mann and said more about this to Adams "Oliver Dean is bad enough, for he is an infidel, but as for old Mann, he is worse than an infidel!" (Mann was a Swedenborgian)

Busybody Adams repeated this whole conversation to Dean, who was so embarrassed and hurt that he stopped contacting Delia, but never told her why. He just didn't respond to her letters. But he kept every letter she sent for the next 60 years, until he lost his vision, then he destroyed them so that no one else could read them.

Delia died of consumption shortly after Dean married, she'd had lots of suitors herself, but never married.

In the wider world, after becoming a doctor, Dean accomplished a big career change, becoming manager of the Amoskeag Mill in Manchester, New Hampshire. A man named Olney Robinson of Rhode Island had purchased an existing mill on the site with capital and machinery borrowed from Samuel Slater’s operation in Rhode Island, Robinson attempted to grow the company but was unsuccessful.

At that point, in 1825, Dr. Dean, Lyman Tiffany and Willard Sayles of Massachusetts acquired majority ownership from Slater and in April of 1826, Dr. Dean moved to Manchester to superintend the construction of a new and larger mill as well as housing for workers – eventually laying out the nucleus of what became the city of Manchester. Dean and company were very successful and Amoskeag became known for producing high quality cloth, which led to incorporation of the company with capitalization of a million dollars in 1831. And the company kept growing. Decades later Amoskeag grew to rank as the largest single textile mill in the world.

But, by that time, Dean was back in Franklin.

In 1851 Dr. Emmon's estate went up for sale and Emmon's surviving daughter (who married Rev. Ide) had stayed friends with Dean and gave him the first opportunity to purchase it because she believed that's what her sister Deliverance would have wanted.

Dean did buy the large property. He also became the owner of a handsome 18th century home on the Town Common, directly opposite Emmons’ former meeting house (where St. Mary’s is today).

Back in Franklin, Dean was involved in many things. He helped established the Franklin LIbrary Association which, in turn, put the Franklin Library (built on Ben Franklin’s donation) into a usable space with funds and planning to grow and better serve the public.

He also helped established Universalism in town. According to the web site of the First Universalist Society, Franklin...

1845- Dr. Oliver Dean was instrumental in the growth of evangelism and Universalism. He was even noted for paying half the ministers’ wages himself.

1856- Dr. Dean donated a piece of land from his estate for the newly formed Universalist Society in Franklin.

1858- The first Universalist Church was erected for a sum of $6,659 on the land donated by Dr. Dean, who was a primary contributor to the building fund as well.

1858- Dr. Dean donated the land for Dean Academy, which was dedicated in 1868 as the northeast’s first Universalist academy, a preparatory school for Tufts University.

As to the Dean House, Ms. Earls tells us in those few years after Dean Academy was established, Dr. and Mrs. Dean would invite Dean graduates to the house for tea parties a couple of times a year. After having tea, they would read the daily newspaper out loud, then play parlor games. Dean died in 1871 and in 1873 the house became the parsonage for the Universalist Church. Rev. A. St. John Chambre lived there until 1880.

But despite those accomplishments, and being very fond of the woman he married, Oliver Dean had these final words on Delia: "Her name was Deliverance, but I always called her Delia...Delia Emmons was the one woman in the world for me, and life would have been to me a widely different thing if I had married her. I ought to have married Delia Emmons.”