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Cooley Dickinson Hospital, Northampton, MA
(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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Caleb Cooley Dickinson (a distant relative to Amherst's Emily Dickinson) was a very successful farmer from Hatfield, Massachusetts, who died in 1882. In his will, he left the majority of his estate - $100,000 - to Northampton, a town just south of Hatfield, for the construction of a hospital. His relatives contested the will and managed to pry $13,000 away, but the $87,000 that remained was used to construct the Cooley Dickinson Hospital, completed on January 1, 1886. The terms of Dickinson's will mandated that the hospital serve the communities neighboring Northampton "either gratuitously or at a moderate charge according to the circumstances" of the patients. As of the turn of the 21st century, the hospital has remained a not-for-profit institution.
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