Granted in 1761, the town was named for Hanover Parish, home parish of settlers from Lisbon, Connecticut. Governor Benning Wentworth selected Hanover as the site of Dartmouth College, with Eleazer Wheelock, minister at Lebanon, Connecticut, as its first president. Dartmouth College's first mission was education of the Indians, and later added the mission to educate English youths to be missionaries among the Indians. Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital, now the Dartmouth Medical School, is also located here. Hanover includes the village of Etna, named for Sicily's volcanic mountain.
