Wheelock, John , 1754-1817
Biography
John Wheelock was born on January 28, 1754, in Lebanon, Conn.He was the eldest son of Eleazar Wheelock who was the founder and first president of Dartmouth College; John Wheelock succeeded his father as the College’s second president.
Wheelock began his higher education at Yale, then followed his father to Hanover, NH when his father founded Dartmouth and completed his studies there, where he was a member of the College’s inaugural graduating class in 1771.
In 1776, Wheelock became a leader of the United Committees, a group of disgruntled New Hampshire citizens angry at their lack of representation in the state legislature and the distance of the state capital; in retaliation for these slights, Wheelock and others led twelve New Hampshire towns to secede from the state and attempt to join Vermont. The next year, 1777, as the Revolutionary War raged, Wheelock briefly served in New York and Vermont as a lieutenant colonel in Colonel Bedel's Regiment.
Upon his father's death in 1779, John Wheelock assumed the presidency of the College, despite the fact that he was neither an academic nor a minister.
During his almost forty years as Dartmouth's president (1779–1815), Wheelock oversaw the construction of Dartmouth Hall and the founding of Dartmouth Medical School, the fourth-oldest medical school in the country; he also maintained the College’s fiscal solvency throughout the Revolutionary War, mainly through the Vermont legislature’s grant of 23,000 acres (93 km²) in Wheelock, Vermont.
During the latter half of Wheelock's tenure, he became embroiled in a dispute with Dartmouth’s Board of Trustees. Wheelock proceeded to convince the governor of New Hampshire to fill the Board with supporters and turn Dartmouth College into a state-controlled Dartmouth University. The original, private Board resisted and eventually sued. The case, Dartmouth College v. Woodward, went through various judicial courts, before the United States Supreme Court decided in the Board's favor in 1819, the result of a brilliant peroration by Dartmouth alumnus Daniel Webster, class of 1801, who had, ironically, graduated under Wheelock's tenure. However, by this time, Wheelock, who had been forced out of the presidency in 1815 by failing health and poor relations with the Board, had died.
Found in 594 Collections and/or Records:
John Wheelock letter
In English.
John Wheelock letter
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John Wheelock letter
In English.
John Wheelock letter
In English.
John Wheelock letter
In English.
John Wheelock letter
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John Wheelock letter
In English.
John Wheelock letter
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John Wheelock letter
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John Wheelock letter
In English.
John Wheelock letter
Letter from John Wheelock at Dartmouth College to Gen. James Whitelaw in Ryegate, Vermont with payment of tax on land in Sterling.
John Wheelock letter
Letter from John Wheelock at Dartmouth College to President John T. Kirland, informing him that Charles H. Bruce has been admitted to college.
John Wheelock letter
Letter from John Wheelock at Dartmouth College to Reuben D. Muzzy, MD, asking him to deliver a course of lectures to the Medical School, in place of Dr. Nathan Smith, who resigned.
John Wheelock letter
Three-page letter from John Wheelock in Hanover to William Henry Woodward, asking the Board of Trustees to sequester the sum of 800, deposited with them in 1786, for the support of a professorship of eloquence, later of a professorship of ecclesiastical and civil history. Includes a transcript of the Trustees' vote of Nov. 11, respecting it.
John Wheelock letter
Letter from John Wheelock of Dartmouth College to Jon. Freeman regarding politics and granting of a tract of land near Lake Erie to Indians to develope fur trade, and friendship with Indians.
John Wheelock letter
John Wheelock's "History" (2 pp. Ms. of what appears to be Wheelock's unpublished "Philosophical History of the Advancement of Nations, with an Inquiry into the Causes of their Rise and Decline".)
John Wheelock letter
Two-page letter from John Wheelock at Dartmouth College to John Sergeant, informing him that the war has cut off communications with Canada and that he has now but one Indian student. Asks Sergeant to send him some more, to be educated at the expense of the fund in Scotland.
John Wheelock letter
Letter from John Wheelock to Jon. Freeman concerning a confidential matter relating to U.S. frontiers, and settling of Indians on frontier reservations. Acknowledgement of receipt of a copy of proposed treaty with France, and commenting on it.
John Wheelock letter
Letter from John Wheelock of Hanover to Nathan Smith regarding a release of land.
John Wheelock letter
Letter from John Wheelock of Dartmouth College to Jon. Freeman, informing him that Jared Griswold has been arrested and confessed to theft of watch. Everyone is excited about approaching election. Writer believes Jefferson will uphold honor of country.
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