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 673 Collections and/or Records:
John Wheelock letter
Letter from John Wheelock of Dartmouth College to Jon. Freeman, telling him that he cannot understand how there can still be friends to France in the United States.
John Wheelock letter
Letter from John Wheelock of Dartmouth College to Jon. Freeman, informing him that he desires addressee to purchase for library "Transactions of the Philadelphia Philosophical Society" bound in four volumes for $18.00.
John Wheelock letter
Two-page letter from John Wheelock at Dartmouth College to Joseph W. Brackett, introducing Willima Bailey.
John Wheelock letter
Letter from John Wheelock of Hanover to Ruggles Woodbridge, regarding business.
John Wheelock letter
Letter from John Wheelock of Dartmouth College to Lyman Spalding concerning a position on the College faculty and meeting of Board of Trustees and their decision.
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
Two-page letter from John Wheelock in Hanover, New Hampshire to William H. Woodward in Hanover, concerning a fund depositd by Wheelock in 1786 which by now should support a professorship (in civil and ecclesiastical history).
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
In English.
John Wheelock letter
In English.
John Wheelock letter
Photocopy of letter from John Wheelock in Dresden to Gen. Gates informing him that due to the illness of his father he has been somewhat confined: expects Capt. Travers in a few days.
John Wheelock letter
Photocopy of a letter from John Wheelock in Haverhill, NH to General Gates, informing him that he has intimated to Col. Bedel Gates dispatches to Congress regarding supplies he is to guard; expects the Committees of Safety to meet soon; mention Capt. Travers and Major Childs.
John Wheelock letter
Letter from John Wheelock in Hanover to Rev. Jedidiah Morse, Secretary. He incloses an account of Moor's School. The property of the School.
John Wheelock letter
In English.
John Wheelock lettter
In English.
John Wheelock memorandum
In English.
John Wheelock memorandum
Written by John Wheelock, "Memorandum of my father's library, purchased of Esq. Woodward."
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