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:
Samuel Worcester letter
In English.
Samuel Worcester letter
In English.
Selectmen of Hanover record of meeting
In English.
Silvanus Ripley letter
In English.
Silvester Tiffany letter
In English.
Sir Count Benjamin Thompson Rumford letter
Letter from Sir Count Benjamin Thompson Rumford of London to John Wheelock of Hanover, N.H. encloses account of the founding of the Royal Institution; the Institution wishes to cultivate a friendly correspondence with the College. Enclosure missing.
Sir John Wentworth letter
In English.
Stephen Jacob letter
Letter from Stephen Jacob in Windsor to J. Wheelock with advice about securing the title to the town of Wheelock.
Thaddeus Betts letter
In English.
Thaddeus Osgood letter
In English.
Thomas Clark letter
In English.
Thomas White Thompson letter
In English.
Thomas Worcester letter
In English.
Thos. Russell letter
In English.
.... to Salma Hale
In English.
Tobias Boudinot letter
In English.
Tobias Boudinot letter
In English.
Tobias Boudinot letter
In English.
Vermont Grant
In English.
Warner Rogiers letter
Two page letter from Warner Rogiers of St. Croix to John Wheelock informing him that he would like to return to Dartmouth but is needed in his father's business.
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- Collection 612
- Archival Object 61