Eleazar Wheelock

Eleazar Wheelock, painting by Joseph Steward

Eleazar Wheelock (born April 22, 1711 in Windham , Connecticut , † April 24, 1779 in Hanover , New Hampshire ) was an American Congregational parish pastor, orator, educator and founder of Dartmouth College .

Early years

Born in Windham, Connecticut, the son of Ralph Wheelock and his wife Ruth Huntington, Wheeock graduated from Yale College in 1733 , won first prize from the Dean Berkeley Foundation and stayed to study theology at Yale until he was pastor of the Second Congregational Church in February 1735 was employed in Lebanon , Connecticut, where he stayed for 35 years. In 1735 he married Sarah Davenport. Wheelock enthusiastically supported the Great Awakening , which was spreading in New England at the time, and became one of its most important proponents in Connecticut and acted as herald of the message of salvation. His sermons were well attended and extremely popular. In 1741 he published A Hundred more Sermons than there are Days in the Year to promote the revival movement . Some contemporaries criticized Wheelock for stirring up excessive emotions with his sermons and encouraging sectarians to form their own revival churches. In 1743 Connecticut passed a law designed to restrict the movement's activities.

Wheelocks Charity School

In 1743 he took on a theology student named Samson Occom , a Mohegan who had converted to Christianity and mastered the English language. Occom's training was extremely successful. Occom became a popular pastor of the Presbyterian Church and preached to Indian and white churchgoers. This success encouraged Wheelock to establish a charity school, funded by donations, for Native American boys and girls to give them English-style religious education. They should then return to their people as missionaries. The girls were taught housekeeping and English.

In 1754 Colonel Joshua More of Mansfield , Connecticut, donated the necessary funds for a piece of land and two school buildings, and by 1762 around 20 Native American youths attended Wheelock's school, the Moor's Charity School . Wheelock continued to successfully raise funds for his project and in 1765 sent Samson Occom and Nathaniel Whitaker to the UK to raise funds. They came back after two years with £ 12,000, most of which was placed on trust by a board of trustees chaired by William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth.

However, there were problems at school. Some of the Indian youth in Wheelock's care fell ill and died, while others became addicted to alcohol or were unsuitable for missionary service for other reasons. In the meantime, Wheelock tried to acquire land from the Six Nations in New York State . After the Fort Stanwix Congress in 1768, he lost enthusiasm for the charity school and its Indian protégés. He was also in trouble with the Lebanon community who wanted to cut his salary.

Dartmouth College

Wheelock eventually pushed through his plan to expand the school to include a college for white students against the board of trustees. On December 13, 1769 he received a charter from King George III. who named Eleazar Wheelock founder and first president and gave him the right to choose his successor. Wheelock named the college after the chairman of the board of trustees Dartmouth College. A new location was found in Hanover (then Dresden) in New Hampshire . After his resignation, Wheelock left the Lebanon church and arrived in Hanover with his helpers in August 1770. Here pristine wilderness awaited them; trees were felled and makeshift huts built for the college in the first few months. The accompanying circumstances were difficult and the following first winter made tough demands on the residents.

In 1771 the first graduation ceremony took place in Dartmouth and four students received their diplomas, including Wheelock's son John. He later became the second president of Dartmouth. In 1774 the money raised in England was exhausted and Dartmouth suffered from growing debt for the remainder of Wheelock's tenure. The American Revolutionary War hit the Indian charity school particularly hard. Many tribes fought on the side of the British and stopped sending their children to school. A notable exception were the Oneida , who were loyal to the Americans and initially ensured the school's survival.

In 1786 Dartmouth College received around 93 km² of land from Parliament in Vermont , roughly the area of ​​the present-day town of Wheelock in Vermont. In the first years of the 19th century, the debt could be gradually reduced with the income from this land donation. In the last years of his life, Wheelock became increasingly ill, but he has never neglected his duties as pulpit speaker, educator and president of Dartmouth College. Eleazar Wheelock died during the Revolutionary War on April 24, 1779 and was buried in Hanover, New Hampshire. One of his few writings is the report on the Indian School in Lebanon (English: Narrative of the Indian School in Lebanon ).

Parts of the old Moor's Indian Charity School in Lebanon are still preserved. The site is now a Historic Landmark in Columbia , Connecticut, as Lebanon is now called. Wheelock, Vermont, was named after Eleazar Wheelock.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} biography of Eleazar Wheelock

Web links

• Eleazar Wheelock's writings
• Brief biography
• History of Dartmouth
• Biography of Eleazar Wheelock
• Dartmouth College
• Wheelock's successor