WHEELOCK, ELEAZAR

born April 22, 1711, Windham, Conn. died April 24, 1779, Hanover, N.H., U.S. American educator who was founder and first president of Dartmouth College. Wheelock graduated from Yale in 1733, studied theology, and in 1735 became a Congregationalist minister at Lebanon, Conn. He was a popular preacher throughout the period of the Great Awakening. When a free school he founded to educate both Indians and whites failed for lack of funds, the governor of New Hampshire offered him a township (36 square miles [93 square km]) of land. With about 30 students, he and other settlers established the town of Hanover in 1770. The college he founded there was named Dartmouth in honour of the 2nd Earl of Dartmouth. For the remaining nine years of his life, including the turbulent Revolutionary War period, Wheelock worked for the college, supervising building, preaching, teaching, and raising funds.