Eleazar Wheelock

1711-1779. Congregational minister; founder and first president of Dartmouth. Graduating from Yale in 1733, he became two years later pastor of the Second or North Parish in Lebanon, Connecticut. While at Yale he was a member of a group similar to the “Holy Club”* at Oxford of which the Wesleys were members. During the first year of his pastorate a revival broke out in Wheelock's church under the influence of Jonathan Edwards'* ministry at Northampton, Massachusetts. During the Great Awakening,* Wheelock gave himself unstintingly to promotion of revival, preaching in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. Though accused of encouraging radical separatists, he was a moderate, opposed to both the radicals and the Old Lights. Interested in converting and educating the Indians, he received from Col. Joshua More a gift of a house and schoolhouse at Lebanon to aid in his work. This became known as More's Charity School, which was later moved to Hanover, New Hampshire, under a 1769 charter and renamed Dartmouth College.