Eleazar Wheelock

author

Eleazar Wheelock

1711–1779

A leading New England minister of the Great Awakening, he founded Moor’s Indian Charity School—an effort that later grew into Dartmouth College. His life sits at the crossroads of early American religion, education, and colonial ambition.

1 Audiobook

A plain and faithful narrative of the original design, rise, progress and present state of the Indian charity-school at Lebanon, in Connecticut

A plain and faithful narrative of the original design, rise, progress and present state of the Indian charity-school at Lebanon, in Connecticut

by Eleazar Wheelock

About the author

Born in 1711, he was a Congregational minister in colonial New England and became known for his role in the Great Awakening. He spent much of his career in Lebanon, Connecticut, where he combined preaching with ambitious educational work.

In 1754, he founded Moor’s Indian Charity School to educate and train Native American students and missionaries. With support from donors in Britain and America, that project eventually developed into Dartmouth College, which was chartered in 1769 and named for William Legge, the 2nd Earl of Dartmouth.

His legacy is complicated as well as influential. He is remembered as a founder of an important American college, but also as a figure whose religious and educational mission was deeply tied to the colonial attitudes and goals of his time. He died in 1779.