Coming to Onondaga Valley at the age of two with his parents, he later settled in Syracuse. He associated with his father and brother John in the drug business and later practiced dentistry in the office of Dr. Amos Westcott. In 1848, Milton Waldo Hanchett patented a dental chair he built from scratch. He was engaged in the manufacture of dentifrice and was known as a fire underwriter. He patented an improved dental chair and the tone sustaining pedal found in all first class pianos. He also made and copyrighted designed for the coinage of the country, but they have never been adapted.
