Eleazar Wheelock

Eleazar Wheelock (April 22, 1711 – April 24, 1779) was an American Congregational minister, orator, and educator in present-day Columbia, Connecticut, for 35 years before founding Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. He had tutored Samson Occom, a Mohegan who became a Presbyterian minister and the second Native American to publish writings in English. Before founding Dartmouth, Wheelock founded and ran the Moor's Charity School in Connecticut to educate Native Americans. From 1750 to the early 1770s forty-nine Native American boys and eighteen Native American girls were educated at the school, while it sometimes catered to the sons of poor colonists. As a slave owner he converted numerous slaves to Christianity.

Early life and education

Eleazar Wheelock was born in Windham, Connecticut, to Ralph Wheelock and Ruth Huntington, who had a prosperous farm of 300 acres. He was the great-grandson of the first teacher of the first free school in the United States (see Dedham, Massachusetts), the Rev. Ralph Wheelock. In 1733, he graduated from Yale College, having won the first award of the Dean Berkeley Donation for distinction in classics. He continued his theological studies at Yale until he was licensed to preach in May 1734.

Marriage and family

Two months after beginning as pastor of a church, on April 29, 1735, he married Sarah Davenport. She died in 1746. They managed a farm in addition to his pastoring, and he was an itinerant preacher during the 1730s and 1740s.

He married a second time to Mary Brinsmead, a widow with two children. In total he had eight children with his wives and two step-children.