In the part of Lebanon known as Village Hill, about three miles from this spot on the road leading from Lebanon to Willimantic, Dr. William Beaumont was born on Nov. 21, 1785. A surgeon in the United States Army, he later became illustrious as a pioneer investigator of the physiology of digestion through painstaking and valuable observations, continued throughout many years and largely at his own cost, upon Alexis St. Martin, who recovered under Beaumont's skillful treatment from a severe gunshot wound of the abdomen that healed with a permanent gastric fistula.