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Thursday, January 4, 2018

Handel Mozart Hayden....Yes..that's somebody's name

I'm working on a very long term in-depth book project that leads me down interesting rabbit holes.  This one is fascinating!  I ran across a branch of the Hayden family of early Windsor, CT that has an interesting name in the family.  The name caught my eye, as a classical musician, so I dug deeper.

Dr. Handel Mozart Hayden (Dentist) born 4 Dec 1807 in Baltimore, MD was the son of Dr. Horace Henry Hayden, pictured above(born in Windsor, CT) who was the co-founder of the first dental school in the world (Baltimore College of Dental Surgery), and Maria Antoinette Robinson of Dover, DE.  Handel and his father Horace had a surgeon dental business, H. Hayden and Son, at SE corner of Mulberry and Charles Streets in Baltimore City (listed as such in the Baltimore city directories 1835-38).  Dr. Handel M. Hayden continues to be listed in the city directories at various addresses in Baltimore up through 1881.  Handel died 7 Mar 1891 in Baltimore.

I have visions of people in the dental office of H. Hayden and Son being distracted (I'm sure the noise of primitive dentistry was pretty ghastly)by the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Handel.  I'm sure the son heard many a joke at his own expense.  Oh, to be a fly on the wall!

Dr. Handel Mozart Hayden was a dentist during the Civil War in Baltimore which must have been a trying experience considering the mangled bodies he must have seen.

His father, Dr. Horace Hayden, influenced to study dentistry by George Washington's dentist, John Greenwood with whom he studied with in 1795 in NYC, served as a surgeon in Baltimore in the War of 1812 and later publishing the first work on geology, Geological Essays, printed in the US.  He was an authority on geology and mineralogy.  Damn!

AND, there is another Handel Mozart Hayden of Randolph, Vermont from the same early Windsor, Hayden family.

Ok....back to work!!

Horace Henry Hayden picture

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