Deaf people in America respected Clerc and call him the `` Father of the Deaf '' because he founded the first school for the deaf in America in Hartford , Connecticut . Clerc and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet founded that school on April 15 , 1817 in an old hotel . With Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet , he co-founded the first school for the deaf in North America , the Hartford Asylum for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb on April 15 , 1817 in the old Bennet 's City Hotel , Hartford , Connecticut .