Fletcher Allen Health Care

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Built: 1877-1879
Builder/Architect: W. P. Wentworth
Former Original Name: Mary Fletcher Hospital

This High Victorian Gothic building, appears to be one of the last standing original buildings of the former Mary Fletcher Hospital. Named for Mary Martha Fletcher, a Burlington resident, it was Vermont's first,¹ reportedly Burlington's first public, and the largest hospital built in northern New England.

From the Guide to Burlington Neighborhoods² we learn many of the details of both Mary's life and the origins of the hospital. Born in Jericho in 1830, Fletcher was the oldest daughter of Thaddeus and Mary L. Fletcher. Like her younger sister Ellen, Mary contracted tuberculosis as a girl and was an invalid much of her life. Thaddeus made a fortune in real-estate investments and had planned on donating a sizeable portion to a public library and hospital, but death took him in 1873 before his wish could be realized. Ellen had died some time before, and the fortune went to Mary and her mother. With a portion of their inheritance they founded the Fletcher Free Library, named for the elder Mary L. Fletcher. When she died in 1875, Mary Martha focused on completing her father's dream and founded the hospital on what had been the 35-acre Moses Catlin Estate. (The old Catlin mansion and several outbuildings were demolished.)

W.P. Wentworth was a Vermont-born architect working in Boston, and construction of his design began in 1877. This building was the first built, contained 29 beds, and originally contained a porte-cochere, which was removed in circa 1940, when the prominent architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White created a "modern" entrance. (It is also thought that another original feature, a belvedere with an ornate weathervane, was also removed during this time.) The hospital admitted its first patient on January 22, 1879 – the day it opened.³

(At the time of its opening, students at the School of Nursing could graduate in a paltry four weeks. By 1941 however, that changed to a required three-year work and study curriculum.⁴)

Mary died in 1885, finally succumbing to the tuberculosis at age 55. When she died it was as a patient, in the hospital she had founded.⁵

Additional hospital buildings were constructed in 1887 and the complex has grown somewhat haphazardly over the years, with major construction again in 1910 and almost every decade thereafter: the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1980s and early 2000s.⁶

The hospital's name has changed several times as it has expanded and merged with other facilities. Prior to its current name, it was the Medical Center Hospital of Vermont. In 1995, it merged with Fanny Allen Hospital and University Health Center, becoming Fletcher Allen Health Care.

1. Blow, David, Historic Guide to Burlington Neighborhoods, VII (Chittenden County Historical Society, 1997), 70-71.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. DiSpirito, Mary Ann and David Robinson, Images of America , Burlington , VII (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 1999), 111.
5. Blow, 71.
6. Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, Burlington Historic Sites & Structures Surveys (1978 & 1983)

Fig. 1. - Auld, Joseph, Picturesque Burlington (Burlington, VT: Free Press Association, 1894).
Fig. 2. - DiSpirito.