A History of Dartmouth College and the Town of Hanover, New Hampshire ... Edited by John K. Lord

Preface

. THE first sheets of this volume of the " History of Dartmouth College and the Town of Han over " had been sent to the press when the sudden and untimely death of its author, Frederick Chase, January 19, 1890, brought the work to a stand. Fortu nately the volume was nearly complete. For ten years or more Mr. Chase had been collecting and ar ranging the materials for it. He had been indefatigable in the search for everything that could throw light upon its subject. Every known source of infor mation was diligently explored, and every clew that suggested the possibility of anything new was care fully followed up. In many cases his diligence was rewarded by the discovery of valuable papers which had never been published ; and so thorough was his search that it is doubtful if anything will ever be found materially to modify his statement of facts, or the conclusions based upon them.

Mr. Chase loved the College and the Town. He had also had the zeal and the enthusiasm of the local antiquary. The preparation of this History was an absorbing delight, and out of the mass of details which he had gathered he selected those which he believed would most truthfully present the story of the College Preface. VI and the Town to the interest of his readers. In his earnestness he overtasked his strength, and falling suddenly under the hand of disease, he left this work as his memorial. The materials for the second volume were almost entirely collected. Some progress was made in their arrangement, but the time when that volume will appear cannot now be determined. This volume is almost wholly as it came from the author's hand. A few expressions have been changed, some parts have been slightly rearranged ; but these changes are only such as the author himself would doubtless have made in a final revision.

A few pas sages have been slightly enlarged, but mainly from the author's memoranda, and the Index has been prepared. To him belongs the credit of the whole. For me to prepare it for the press and to attend to its publication has been but a willing service to the memory of a loved and honored friend. JOHN K. LORD. Dartmouth College, August, 1891. CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

Chapter I. Dr

WHEELOCK AND HIS SCHOOL IN LEBANON, CONNECTICUT. Pack Wheelock's Family. — His Connection with the " Great Awakening." — Rise of his School. — Gift of Mr. Moor. — Relations with Brainerd and Whitefield, the London and Scotch Societies, Sir William Johnson, and the Public Authorities of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. — Tour of Whitaker and Occom in Great Britain. — The English and Scotch Trusts. — Indian Missions, etc I

Chapter II

A NEW LOCATION AND A CHARTER. Negotiations in England, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. — Wheelock's Preference for the Susquehanna. — Correspondence relative to New Hampshire Charter. — Misunderstanding with Governor Wentworth. — Issue of the Charter. — Location at Haverhill, and Change to Hanover. — Letters of Lord Dartmouth, Wentworth, Schuyler, Smith, Lyman, and Others, etc 90

Chapter III. Hanover Under The Proprietary

How the Grant was obtained. — Physical Features of the Town. — Proprietary Acts. — First Settlers, Roads, etc. . . . Contents.

Chapter IV. The Official Church Of The Town

Page The Grafton Presbytery and the Schism of Rev. Mr. Burroughs 185

Chapter V. The College Under Governor Wentworth

First Steps of the College. — Incidents of the Wilderness. — Letters of Governor Wentworth. — Attitude of the Governor and New Hampshire Assembly. — Trouble with the Foreign Trus tees. — Plans for Enlargement. — Stoppage of Supplies. — Indian Missions, Domestic Affairs, etc 217

Chapter VI. The Town And The College In The Revolution

Attitude of Wheelock and Town in Public Affairs. — Military Activity. — Letters to Washington, Trumbull, Schuyler, Gates, and Others. — Scouts. — Alarms. — Bedel's Regiment, and Lieu tenant-Colonel Wheelock's Expedition to the Indian Country. — Details of Frontier and Army Service, etc 318

Chapter VII. The College Hall In Politics

Early Efforts to restore New Hampshire Authority west of the River. — Quarrel with New Hampshire about Representa tion. — Conventions and Doings of the "College Hall" Party. — Jealousy of State Officials. — Town of " Dresden." — Unions with Vermont. — Records and Letters. — Collapse of the Union. — Persistency of the Dresden Party. — Ensuing Trouble with New Hampshire about Taxation. — Attempts to incorporate the College District and to divide the Town, etc Contents. IX

Chapter VIII. The College And Moor's Charity School To

1815. Page Last Years of Dr. Wheelock. — Trouble between College and Town. — Proposed Removal of the College into New York. — Death of Wheelock, and Critical State of the College. — Questions about the Succession. — Tour of President John Wheelock to Europe. — New Buildings. — Debts, Lotteries, etc. — Gifts by New Hampshire and Vermont. — Loss of Landaff. — Revival of Moor's School. — Litigation with Vermont. — Peculiar Schemes of Extension and Control. — Prosperity of the College. — Relations with the Scotch Society and the Indians. — Financial Condition of the College, etc 528 i

Appendix

. Appendix A 639 " B 650 " C 652 D 654 " E 664 Index LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. portraits. Page Eleazar Wheelock Frontispiece John Thornton 58 Nathaniel Whitaker 60 John Wentworth 217 Bezaleel Woodward 447 plans ano HcttcrS. Original Site of the College, as proposed 130 Letter of Wentworth, fac-simile . . . 139 Town Plot 167 Map showing Allotment of Town Lands 181 First College Hall 223 Village in 1775 229 Letter of Trustees, fac-simile 234 College Seal 255 College Hall and Commons 270 Letter of English Trust, fac-simile 280 Proposed Division of the Town 525 Lottery Ticket 578 Chapel of 1 790-1 828 581 Township of Landaff 601 Lottery Ticket

Chapter I

1735-1769. REV. ELEAZAR WHEELOCK, AND HIS SCHOOL IN LEBANON, CONNECTICUT. ELEAZAR WHEELOCK, the founder of Dartmouth College, was born in Windham, Conn., April 22, 171 1 (O. S.). His father was Dea. Ralph Wheelock, a farmer, who was born in 1683, and died Oct. 15, 1748, aged sixty-six. His mother was Ruth, daughter of Christopher Huntington, of Norwich, Conn. He was the second child and an only son, but had five sisters. One of these married Rev. Benjamin Pomeroy, of Hebron ; another (whose mother was Mercy Stand ish, of Preston) married Jabez Bingham, of Salisbury; the others married respectively Joshua Henda, or Hendee, Robert Hub bard, and Joseph Bingham, all of Windham.1 Wheelock became a Christian at the age of sixteen or seventeen. He entered Yale College in 1729, where he was 1 Wheelock's earliest ancestor, of whom any account has been obtained, was his great-grandfather, Ralph, born in Shropshire, England, in 1600, and educated at Clare Hall in Cambridge.

He was an eminent Nonconformist preacher, and fled from persecution to Dedham, Mass., in 1637, where he was one of the founders of the First Church in 1638. He removed afterwards to Medfield, where he was a large landowner, and for several years representative to the General Court. He was an occasional preacher. He died November, 1683, aged eighty-three. His son, Whee lock's grandfather, Captain Eleazar, born 1654, removed to Mendon, Mass. He commanded a company of cavalry in the Indian war, and kept his house as a garri son. In peace he was on kind and familiar terms with the Indians. He died March 24, 1731, aged seventy-seven (American Quarterly Register, x. 9). [Chap. I. 2 supported by a legacy left for his education by his grandfather (whose name he bore), and graduated with high honors in 1733.

He and Pomeroy were classmates and the first recipients of Bishop Berkeley's prize, being the best classical scholars in their class. Wheelock began at once preparation for the ministry. He was licensed to preach by the New Haven Asso ciation in 1734, and in February, 1735, after declining an invi tation to settle on Long Island, received and accepted a call from the Second, or North, Society in that part of Lebanon, Conn., called Lebanon Crank, which is now incorporated into the town of Columbia. He was ordained and settled in June following. By the terms of his settlement he received about twenty acres of land that had been reserved from the settlements of former pastors, and in bills of public credit. His salary was to be £140, payable in the like currency or in provisions at stated prices.

The same year, 1735, Wheelock married Mrs. Sarah Maltby, widow of Capt. William Maltby, of New Haven, and daughter of Rev. John Davenport, of Stamford, Conn. This lady was a sister of Rev. James Davenport, of Southold, L. I., and of the wife of Rev. Stephen Williams, of Longmeadow. She had at that time, besides two daughters, one son, John Maltby, whom Wheelock came afterwards to love as his own. She bore to Wheelock six children, of whom three died in infancy. She herself died, Nov. 13, 1746, in the forty-fourth year of her age; and about 1749 Wheelock married Mary Brinsmead, of Milford, Conn., by whom he had five children, all born in Lebanon.1 1 Wheelock's children were — By the first wife : I. Theodora, who married (i), January, 1751/2, Alexander Phelps, of Hebron ; (2) April 27, 1777, Capt. John Young, of Gunthwaite (Lisbon), N. H. About 1780 they removed to Hanover, where Captain Young died, 1786, aged seventy.

She survived him some twenty-five years. 2. Ruth, born 1740, married, 1758, Rev. Wm. Patten, of Hartford, Conn., who became one of the first trustees of Dartmouth College, and died, 1775, aged thirty-seven. Mrs. Patten survived her husband fifty-six years, and died in 1831. Two small volumes of her memoirs and family correspondence were published in 1834 and 1845 at Hartford. 3. Ralph, or Radulphus, graduated from Yale College, 1765, and died unmarried at Hanover, 1817, aged seventy. His youth was promising, but hereditary epilepsy ruined his life. By the second wife, Wheelock had five children: namely (1) Mary, who mar ried Prof. Bezaleel Woodward, 1772, and died at Hanover, 1807 ; (2) Abigail, who married Rev. Prof. Silvanus Ripley, and died at Fryeburg, Me., 1818 [Gen. E. W. Ripley was her son] ; (3) John, the second president of the College ; (4) Eleazar; Wheelock and his School. >735-i 709-1 3 Wheelock was connected by ties of blood, through his mother, with some of the most eminent of Connecticut statesmen and divines, and associated, by residence, with many others.1 Extraordinary religious interest began to appear in the parish and colony immediately after Wheelock's settlement at Leb anon ; and he took at once a prominent place among the preachers, which he continued to hold throughout the " Great Awakening " that followed, under the lead of Edwards and Whitefield.

During the year 1741 he is said to have preached about five hundred sermons.2 In November, 1741, Wheelock went to Boston by way of Providence and Taunton, and on the 9th makes this entry in his Diary, — " Refused to preach, because I designed to go out of town. Just as I was going [from Boston], came Mr. Webb, and told me the people were meeting together to hear another sermon. I consented to preach again. A scholar from Cambridge being present, hastened to Cambridge, and by a little after six a great part of the scholars had got to Boston. Preached to a very thronged assembly with very great freedom and enlargement. I believe the children of God were very much refreshed. They told me afterward that Mather Byles was never so lashed in his life. This morning Mr. Cooper came to me, in the name of the Hon. Jacob Wendell, Esq., and earnestly desired a copy of my sermon, preached in the forenoon of the Lord's day, for the Press.

Oh that God would make and keep me humble ! " Wheelock was now about thirty years of age. " He was of middle stature and size, well proportioned, erect, and dignified. His features were prominent, his eyes a light blue and ani mated. His complexion was fair, and the general expression of his countenance pleasing and handsome. His voice was remarkably full, harmonious, and commanding." 3 The his torian Trumbull, who was his friend, characterizes him in similar terms as — "A gentleman of a comely figure, of a mild and winning aspect; his voice smooth and harmonious, — the best by far I ever heard. His movements and (5) James. These three sons graduated from Dartmouth, and remained and reared families at Hanover. Eleazar removed to Ohio about 1805, and James to Burlington, Vt., about 1830. 1 See Connecticut Reminiscences, by Rev. Dr. Increase N. Tarbox, New Eng lander, November, 1883 (vol. xlii., No. 177, p. 719). 2 See his Diary, printed in part in American Quarterly Register, x. 12, and in full in the Historical Magazine, 1869. 3 Memoirs of Wheelock, p. 131. [Chap. I. while in the desk were natural and impressive, and his eloquence irresistible.

His preaching and addresses were close and pungent, and yet winning be yond almost all comparison, so that his audience would be melted even into tears before they were aware of it." 1 Rev. Joseph Tracy, the historian of the movement, says of him — " That Wheelock played a most prominent part in the ' Great Awaken ing ' is undeniable. There is scarce another man of equal eminence in that age of the peculiarities of whose character and style of promoting religion we have so little satisfactory information ; and yet there is reason to suspect that those peculiarities exerted an important influence."* Wheelock's personal acquaintance with Whitefield began as early certainly as May, 1740. At that time he, and Pomeroy, and James Davenport visited New York together, and heard Whitefield preach, and conversed with him.

Whitefield speaks of meeting Wheelock and Pomeroy again at Wethersfield, Conn., in October of the same year.3 In 1754 and (as appears) in 1764 and at other times he visited Wheelock at Lebanon. We shall see that this connection has an important relation to the history we are about to narrate. Without the active assistance of Whitefield and his friends it would not have been possible for Wheelock to develop and carry out his extensive plans. Nothing, therefore, is truer than that Dart mouth College is peculiarly a child of the Great Revival. The relationship is plain; and Whitefield himself, though far from intending it, was actually the most important agent in establishing the College. With the rest of the revivalists Wheelock suffered indignity and persecution, though he was not actually punished by the civil authorities, like his brother-in-law, Pomeroy.4 In June, 1742, though " he understood that the authorities had been con- 1 History of Connecticut, ii. 158. 2 The Great Awakening, Tracy, 1842, p. vii.

Much has been published of Whee lock in a fragmentary way. The following authorities, among others, may be specially noted : a long and authentic article by Rev. Dr. William Allen, son-in-law and executor of the second president, American Quarterly Register, x. 9-31 ; New England Historical and Genealogical Register, xiv. 376; Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit, i. 397-403 ; Memoirs of Wheelock, by Rev. David McClure and Rev. Elijah Parish (Newburyport, 1811) ; The One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniver sary of the Congregational Church in Columbia, Conn, (pamphlet), 1867; Yale Biographies, Dexter, i. 493-99, and references there cited. 3 Amer. Presbyterian Review (3d Ser., 1869), i. 281 ; Great Awakening, p. 102. 4 Pomeroy was arrested in 1744, and fined, and put under bonds, the effect of which Wlieelock and his School. i735-'769-] 5 suiting how to take him, and that Colonel Whiting had given out great words, and said that he should not preach but once in town," Wheelock went to New Haven and preached about three weeks to the " Separate," or " New Light," church, in Rev. Mr. Noyes's parish.

While there he breakfasted by invitation with President Clap, but was not permitted to preach in the College, and the students were prohibited from going to hear him elsewhere. The support that Wheelock thus gave to the Separate movement led to denunciation of him as a "Separatist" when that word had become a term of special reproach, in consequence of the erratic course of Wheelock's brother-in-law, James Davenport, of Southold, L. I. But the truth was that Wheelock gave no countenance to Davenport's extravagances, and was chiefly instrumental in turning him away from his delusions. The unsavory charge was neverthe less kept alive by those who cherished hostility from other causes, and continued to plague Wheelock even after his re moval to New Hampshire. But his prominence in the revival gave him, on the other hand, a host of warm friends, a wide and favorable acquaintance, and high reputation among the clergy at home and abroad, from all of which he derived inestimable advantage in his subsequent labors and perplexities.

The most influential as well as the most bitter of Wheelock's revilers was the Rev. Dr. Charles Chauncey, of Boston, who at tacked him with virulence by name in his book as having, with Davenport, Pomeroy, Allen, and Bliss (" all of them of one soul"}, " the chief hand in raising the commotions in Connecti cut, where sudden impulses and extraordinary pretences to the Spirit have been more general in proportion and extravagant than in any of the other governments." Dr. Chauncey ascribed their behavior to the influence of one Davis Ferris, who, he says, was in College with them, coming — "from a nest of Quakers at New Milford, and made a great show of sanctity, by means whereof he was under advantage to propagate his Quakerish notions, and did do it among a number of the students. [Wheelock and the others] were familiar with Ferris, and led astray by him.

They made a club, and often met together. They did not open their principles to all, but to those whom they imagined they could work upon. They laid great stress was to deprive him of any legal claim to salary from his parish ; so that he worked in it seven years without stated compensation. Great Awakening, p. 308 ; Dexter's Yale Biographies, i. 486. [Chap. I. upon impressions and impulses. . . . They were strangely uncharitable, expressing themselves censoriously of most others. They had no opinion of any but themselves on a religious account." 1 Wheelock seems to have taken no immediate notice of this savage attack; but when, sixteen years later, the influence of Dr. Chauncey and the charges in his book came up to threaten the success of the school, Wheelock was impelled to take no tice of it.

He writes accordingly to Rev. Ebenezer Pember ton (Oct. 24, 1759) to let Dr. Chauncey know what injury is likely to arise from these old slanders, which, he says, " con tain no less than a dozen palpable falsehoods." He denies any knowledge of most of the circumstances that Dr. Chauncey mentioned. " I challenge all the world [says he] truthfully to mention one principle which I vented in my belief contrary to Calvinism. ... I was upon the same road to New Haven when that Doctor passed through this government (as I understand), to fill his crop with material for that piece, and I came sev eral times within scent of him (for he left a savor of what he fed upon where he lit), and should have freely given him a full and true account of that whole affair, had he desired to know the truth." 2 No accommodation was reached ; and we shall fall many times upon the traces of the quarrel, which it is but fair to say was wholly of Dr. Chauncey's making, without, so far as we know, any personal provocation whatever.

Wheelock is said by his biographers to have had, by patri mony and by marriage, a competency at the time of his removal to Hanover.3 But in the early years of his pastorate 1 Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New England, 1743, pp. 201, 212. See also Dr. Chauncey's sermon at the ordination of Joseph Bowman, 1762. 2 American Presbyterian Review (1871), iii. 474. 3 A will executed by Wheelock at Lebanon in 1768, superseded afterwards but still preserved, mentions landed and other property as follows : 1. The lot of twenty acres on which he dwelt, bounded west on the common or meeting-house green, and south and east on Coventry road. 2. The " Spinning-mill Pasture," of thirty-one acres, bounded east on the Hartford road, and north and west on Pine Swamp road. 3. A farm bought of Benoni Wright, bounded west by Hartford road, north by Jabez Wright, and south by John Fowler and Preserved Wright. 4.

A farm in Windham, west of the Shatucket River, which was to furnish portions for his five younger chil dren. 5. A farm in Lebanon, bought for his wife of John English ; and other lands adjoining it. 6. A farm belonging to his wife in Milford. Of personal property besides furniture, books, sheep, and swine, he disposes of two yoke of oxen, four cows, four horses, and five negro slaves, whom he afterwards brought to Hanover ; namely, Brister, Exeter, Chloe, a boy Archelaus, and a girl Peggy. For lack of another negro girl he bequeathed to one of his daughters £20. 1735-1769-] Wheelock and his School. 7 his resources seem to have been quite inadequate to the de mands of an increasing family. His salary, small at the best, was by no means promptly paid, and even then often in grain at high prices ; so that at times he received no more than a third of its value during the entire year.

He was thus driven to eke it out by devoting a part of his time to the private instruction of youth in preparation for college, according to the custom till of late quite usual with clergymen in New England. This business of teaching grew shortly to be an important and per manent part of his regular occupation, and was continued with out interruption, excepting for about a year, in 1744-45, when the school was conducted for Wheelock at Hebron by Alex ander Phelps (afterwards his son-in-law), then just graduated from Yale College. There is no reason to suppose that Wheelock's thoughts in this work were at first in any way directed to the Indians, though the remnants of the local tribes settled at various points in that region were the object of much attention from the pas tors in their vicinity, and of greater interest to many from the current belief in their identity with the lost Israelites.

To this opinion Wheelock himself subscribed. " When I get leisure for it," he wrote to Dr. Erskine in July, 1763, " I will endeavor to hint to you some of the reasons why I think the Indians of this land are the Ten tribes of the House of Israel." The Indians nearest to Wheelock were the Mohegans, at their town between Norwich and New London. The other tribes most accessible to him were at Montauk, Narragansett, and Stonington. Apparently the first to present himself for in struction was a Mohegan named Samson Occom (or Occum). He had become a Christian through the influence of Rev. John Davenport in the revival of 1741-42, and was now about nineteen years of age. His mother came to Wheelock in his behalf; and at her solicitation, but with some hesitancy, it would seem, he was received Dec. 6, 1743.

He was aided by the London Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and remained with Wheelock until March 14, 1748, excluding, of course, the year when he was at Hebron with the rest of Wheelock's scholars under Phelps. Six years elapsed, after Occom left, before Wheelock shaped his plans for taking other Indian boys, though he continued to devote himself as before to the work of fitting English boys for college. But in 1754 Wheelock's thoughts took a new and decided turn towards the Indians, in connection apparently with a radical enlargement of his plan, when, in con sequence probably of growing numbers, it took for the first time the shape of a regular school, with a hired assistant, or " master." Devotion to the Indian was even then not the only occasion of the change. His earliest biographer and zealous friend tells us expressly that " other considerations had their influence with him, particularly his want of such extensive fields for industry and success in his ministry as he wished.

Although his minis trations had been divinely blessed to many souls, yet the bounds of a small parish were too confined, and ordinary labors too limited, for his ardent and active mind."1 The improvement and conversion of the Indian tribes was of course no new object of desire; it had long occupied the at tention of philanthropists on both sides of the Atlantic, and missionaries of English blood had been sent among them in various directions by the great societies of London and Edin burgh, entitled respectively " The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," and " The Society in Scot land for propagating Christian Knowedge." The first, founded in 1 701, was controlled by the English Church; the second, founded in 1709, by the Scotch Presbyterians. The London society had for a long time maintained a Board of Commission ers in Boston.

A similar board had been established in that town by the Scotch society in 1730, which ceased in 1737, and was revived in 1756. The Scotch society had also a "Board of Correspondents " in New York city, which (established in 1 741, and afterwards removed to Princeton, N. J.) had since 1744 supported the two Brainerds successively as missionaries among the Delawares of New Jersey. There had been recent brief missions among the Mohawks and the Oneidas, but none to any other tribes of the Six Nations. Rev. John Sergeant, missionary of the London board among the Stockbridge In dians, had already a flourishing boarding-school, supported by charitable contributions, which had been established by his father (of the same name) at Housatonic in 1748 (the year 1 Memoirs of Wheelock, p. 18. 1735-1769-1 9 before his death), six years in advance of Wheelock's school, and on a plan substantially like it.

But Mr. Sergeant's school was situated in the midst of the Indians themselves, and devoted exclusively to them. Whee lock conceived the idea that better success might be at tained by removing the children for a term of years entirely from their native influences, and bringing them in contact with English youth in a mixed school. He designed also to edu cate his Indian pupils especially for missionaries, believing that they would accomplish much more among the Indians than missionaries of English blood. His plan contemplated the reception of Indians of both sexes, and also of English youth consecrated to Indian missions, who would there enjoy excellent facilities for learning the native language and customs. For all these Wheelock counted on finding support from charity. Other students were to be received, as before, who would pay their own charges.1 In pursuance of this plan Wheelock in May, 1754, wrote to Rev. John Brainerd at Bethel, N. J., to send him, by way of trial, two likely boys of the Delaware tribe.

On the 1 8th of December, 1754, there arrived accordingly at his house in Lebanon, John Pumpshire, in the fourteenth year of his age, and Jacob Woolley, not yet eleven. These came about two hundred miles on foot and alone through a country which they had never passed before, and with no guide but the paper given them by Mr. Brainerd. They excited a deep interest among the good people of Lebanon, who took pleasure in providing them from time to time with the various necessaries of life, and " they behaved as well as could be reasonably expected." In the meantime Wheelock's plan was canvassed among his friends, and found favor. Stimulated by the arrival of Pump shire and Woolley, subscriptions were obtained, with Pomeroy's assistance, in the following year, to the amount of about five hundred pounds, proclamation money, to stand as a permanent fund for the school, each subscriber promising for the present, until the school should be incorporated, to pay the annual in terest upon his subscription at six per cent.

While making up this fund, Wheelock visited Col. Joshua More, — a wealthy farmer of Mansfield, residing near the river, 1 See Wheelock's Narrative, 1763. four miles north of the present village of Willimantic, — and, as he says, proposed to him to devote to this object a part of his large estate. Colonel More was pleased with the idea, and at Wheelock's suggestion purchased for the school, June 28, 1755, at a cost of five hundred pounds (old tenor), a parcel of land, containing about two acres of pasturage, contiguous to Wheelock's mansion in Lebanon, having on it a " small dwelling house and a shop or school-house," capable all together of af fording a rental of about four pounds lawful money net annual income. The land lay southeasterly of the meeting-house and on the west side of the Hartford road, extending seventeen and one half rods on the road, and running back twenty-two rods to " Dam Brook."

It was bought of Moses Barrett, " late school master in Lebanon ; " and as one Moses Barrett figures from 1754 as the first "master," or "preceptor," of the new school, we are led to conjecture that Wheelock's school was at the time of the new departure consolidated with a pre-existing school of the Barretts.1 Matters being in this shape, in order to inspire confidence in the stability of the enterprise and encourage subscriptions, it was thought best to organize, if possible, something like a body corporate. Wheelock accordingly " represented the affair to Col. Elisha Williams, Esq., late rector of Yale College," to Rev. Samuel Moseley, of Windham, and to his brother-in-law, Rev. Benjamin Pomeroy, of Hebron, " and invited them to join him ; and they readily accepted the invitation, the affair appear ing with an agreeable aspect, and it being a time of profound peace.