WHEELOCK, Eleazar, educator, born in Wind-ham, Connecticut, 22 April, 1711; died in Hanover, New Hampshire, 24 April, 1779. His great-grandfather, Reverend Ralph Wheelock (1600-'83), an eminent non-conformist clergyman, came to New England in 1637, was a founder of the 1st church in Dedham, Massachusetts, in 1638, and thence removed to Medfield, where he was a large land-owner and a representative to the general court, Halph's son, Eleazar, commanded a cavalry company against the Indians, and the latter's son, Ralph, was a farmer. The second Ralph's son, Eleazar, was graduated at Yale in 1733, having been educated with the proceeds of a legacy that had been left by his grandfather, Captain Eleazar, for that purpose. He then studied divinity, and in 1735 was ordained over the 2d church in Lebanon, Connecticut, where he labored thirty-five years. In the year of his settlement there was a great revival of religion in his flock. During its progress he encountered opposition both from those that were more conservative than he and from the more radical, yet he entered into his work with zeal, preaching in one year "a hundred more sermons than there are days in the year." Several years later, his salary being insufficient for his support, he began to take pupils into his house, and in 1743 he received thus Samson Occom (q. v.), a Mohican Indian, whom he educated. He now conceived the plan of an Indian missionary school, and by 1762 he had more than twenty youths under his charge, chiefly Indians. They were supported by the contributions of benevolent persons, and the school received the name of Moor's Indian charity-school, from Joshua Moor, a Mansfield farmer, who gave it a house and two acres of land in Lebanon, in 1754. In 1766, Occom and Reverend Nathaniel Whitaker went to England, and by their exertions an endowment of about £10,000 was obtained, most of which was placed in the hands of a board of trustees, of which William Legge (q. v.), Earl of Dartmouth, was president. It was afterward determined to remove the school to a new location, and to add to it a seminary where scholars might be trained in the classics, philosophy, and literature. Mr. Wheelock received offers of land from various towns, but finally selected Dresden (now Hanover), New Hampshire, both because of the healthfulness of the region, and because of the large landed endowment that was proffered by John Wentworth, the royal governor. A charter was obtained from George III., through Governor Wentworth, in which Wheelock was named as founder and president of the college, with the privilege of naming his successor, and also as a trustee. The college was named for Lord Dartmouth, though he and the other trustees of the Indian school were opposed to its establishment, and the institutions therefore remained nominally separate till 1849. In August, 1770, Wheelock removed to Hanover, which was then a wilderness, and, after directing the clearing of a few acres and the building of one or two log-cabins, was joined by his sons and pupils, who at first dwelt in booths of hemlock boughs and slept on beds of the same. The first winter was severe, the buildings were not far enough advanced to afford perfect shelter, and great fortitude was necessary in both teachers and students. Four pupils were graduated at the first commencement in 1771, but in the year of the founder's death the number had increased to seventeen. Dr. Wheelock was afflicted with asthma for many years, yet he continued to preach, and, when unable to walk, was repeatedly carried to the college chapel. His popularity as a pulpit orator was inferior only to that of George Whitefield, and his scholarship was advanced for his time. The University of Edinburgh gave him the degree of D. D. in 1767. The prospects of the Indian school that was the germ of Dartmouth college were blighted by the Revolution, in which many tribes adhered to the mother country, yet the Oneidas were kept from doing so probably through its means, and many frontier settlements were thus saved from pillage and murder. Dr. Wheelock published a "Narrative of the Indian School at Lebanon," with several continuations (1762-'75), and various sermons. See a "Memoir," with extracts from his correspondence, by Reverend David McClure and Reverend Elijah Parish (Newburyport, Massachusetts, 1811).--His son, John, educator, born in Lebanon, Connecticut, 28 January, 1754; died in Hanover, New Hampshire, 4 April, 1817, entered Yale in 1767, but accompanied his father to New Hampshire in 1770, and was graduated at Dartmouth with the first class in 1771. He was a tutor in 1772-'4, a member of the Provincial congress in the latter year, and in 1775 a delegate to the assembly. In the spring of 1777 he was appointed a major in the service of the state of New York, and in the following November he was commissioned lieutenant-colonel in the Continental army. He was sent by General John Stark on an expedition against the Indians in 1778, and then served on the staff of General Horatio Gates till he was recalled to Hanover by his father's death in 1779. In the same year he was chosen to succeed his father in the presidency of the college, though he was but twenty-five years old, and in 1782 he was given the chair of civil and ecclesiastical history. In 1783 the trustees sent him to Europe to raise funds, where by the good offices of Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, and by letters of introduction from Washington and the French minister, he was moderately successful. In England he made arrangements concerning the interrupted income of the college, and procured philosophical instruments and other donations ; but on his return he was shipwrecked off Cape Cod, and lost the box that contained his money and papers. During President Wheelock's administration of thirty-six years the college was in a flourishing condition. Under him the present Dartmouth hall was built in 1786, and the medical department was established in 1798. In 1815, in consequence of questions of religious opinion and differences with the trustees, he was removed from office by the latter, and this act occasioned a violent controversy. The public in general sided with Dr. Wheelock, and the legislature, asserting their right to alter the charter, reorganized the college in 1816 as Dartmouth university, with a new board of trustees. These reinstated Dr. Wheelock in 1817, but he died a few months later. Meanwhile the old board began suit for the recovery of the college property. They lost their case in the state supreme court, but won it on appeal to the United States supreme court, and the new charter and board of trustees went out of existence. In this case, which is called the "Dartmouth college case," Daniel Webster laid the foundation of his reputation as constitutional lawyer. Dr. Wheelock had received the degree of LL.D. from Dartmouth in 1789. He left half his estate to Princeton theological seminary. He published an " Essay on the Beauties and Excellences of Painting, Music, and Poetry" (1774) ; "Eulogy on Professor John Smith. D. D." (1809) ; arid "Sketches of the History of Dartmouth College" (1816).--His only daughter, Mania MAL-LEVILLE, married Dr. William Allen, president of Bowdoin college. The illustration is a view of the Wilson library, the finest of the present buildings of Dartmouth college.