Cavendish, Vermont: Phineas Gage: A Rod Went Through His Skull
RoadsideAmerica.com Team Field Report
- Address:
- VT 131, Cavendish, VT
- Directions:
- I-91 exit 8. West on Hwy 131 13 miles to Cavendish. The memorial plaques are bolted to a big rock in an empty lot at the corner of Hwy 131 and S. Pleasant St. Cavendish only has a couple of streets, so it's hard to miss.
- RA Rates:
- Major Fun
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Phineas Gage: A Rod Went Through His SkullOne of America's oddest celebrities is Phineas P. Gage, who had a metal rod blown through his head and lived to profit from it. Roadsideamerica.com Report... [12/09/2012]
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A plaque in the town of Cavendish, VT commemorates a freakish event that happened near the town on the 13th of September 1848. An explosion sent a 3 foot tamping rod through the cranium of Burlington Railroad foreman Phineas Gage. Gage survived the accident, but his personality was altered by the experience. Once level-headed and intelligent, he became a crazed, profane loony, carrying the tamping iron as a cane. His skull and the tamping iron are now on display at Harvard University's Countway Library of Medicine. The plaque in Cavendish shows a picture of Phineas's skull as well as a map to the site of the explosion. A quick walk along the railroad tracks will take you to the curve where the accident happened.
[Ethan Crenson, 08/25/2002]Nearby Offbeat Places
- Underground Telescope Museum, Springfield, VT - 9 mi.
- Path of Life Garden, Windsor, VT - 14 mi.
- Bowman Mausoleum's Mourning Man, Cuttingsville, VT - 15 mi.
- In the region: The Whispering Statue, Barre, VT - 57 mi.
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Though the town celebrated the 150th Anniversary of the accident in 1998, there's no recurring Phineas Gage Days festival, but there should be. Gage is part of a medical pop-culture pantheon that includes the Elephant Man, Chang and Eng, and Dr. Beaumont's "man with the window in his stomach." There's also a quirky Seattle-based band named Phineas Gage.