Charles Sherman Little was born on February 12, 1869 in Webster, New Hampshire, United States, the son of Sherman and Mary Ann (Austin) Little. His ancestors, of old New England stock, had pioneered into the rugged hill country of New Hampshire; his father's farm was one of the highest in the township. He was the third son and fifth of eight children, and at an early age he assumed the responsibilities of a man in the family circle.
He attended the district schools at Webster. Then he entered Dow Academy, Franconia, New Hampshire, and Dartmouth College, working his way through both institutions. In college he was a star lineman on the football team and a hammer-thrower on the track team. Later he became interested in medicine through helping to care for his father during a siege of illness and decided to take up the study of medicine at Dartmouth College. He received his Doctor of Medicine degree in 1896. He was also awarded with an honorary degree from Dartmouth College in 1933.
Little successively served on the staffs of the Tewksbury (Massachusetts) State Hospital, the Taunton (Massachusetts) State Hospital, and the McLean Hospital at Waverley, Massachusetts, the last the outstanding private hospital for the insane in New England. While at Waverley he undoubtedly became acquainted with Dr. Walter Fernald, superintendent of the Massachusetts state school for the feebleminded there, and it was presumably on Fernald's recommendation that Little was selected to establish and construct a newly authorized institution for the feebleminded in his native state of New Hampshire. The Laconia State School opened in 1903. Despite considerable opposition and the most meager appropriations, Little soon made the school, small though it was, so efficient and so well managed that it attracted attention in all of the northeastern states.
In 1910 Little was called to New York State to head a new school for the feebleminded, Letchworth Village, at Thiells in Rockland County. His ideal for such an institution was that it should be a pleasant and comfortable home for those who required custodial care, a school for those capable of benefiting from academic or vocational training, and a laboratory conducting research studies in the etiology and possible prevention of feeblemindedness. He insisted on a plan consisting of a number of small, one-story buildings, each with an adjacent playground, rather than one large structure, and he flooded the buildings with fresh air and sunshine. The financial support of Mrs. Edward Henry Harriman made possible an early start on a program of research.
His death, caused by coronary thrombosis, came suddenly, as he had always hoped it would. He died at Letchworth Village and was buried in the town of his birth.
Little's boyhood training and his struggle to obtain an education developed in him a vigorous character and personality. Coupled with an amazing energy was a determination and fighting spirit that made it possible for him to carry through to completion any task assigned him. These qualities were tempered by a kindness of heart for every honest person, no matter of what station in life. He was an outstanding leader. Reticent in expression and humble in spirit Little had a keen sense of humor and loved companionship, particularly of young people.
On October 22, 1902, Little married Tertia Claire Wilton, a fellow physician whom he had met while serving at the state hospital at Taunton. Two children were born to them, Charles Sherman, who became a pediatric psychiatrist, and Barbara Wilton, who also went into medical work. In 1919, after the death of his first wife, Little married Daphne Watson Perkins of Moores Corner, Massachusetts; there were no children by the second marriage.
