that the next actor upon the stage, undaunted by
any lack of success on their part, measurably followed in the
footsteps of learned and philanthropic predecessors.

CHAPTER II.

ANCESTRY AND EARLY LIFE OF ELEAZAR WHEELOCK.--HIS SETTLEMENT AT
LEBANON, CONN.--ESTABLISHMENT OF THE INDIAN CHARITY SCHOOL.--MR.
JOSHUA MORE.

Eleazar Wheelock, the leading founder of Dartmouth College, was a
great-grandson of Ralph Wheelock, a native of Shropshire, in England,
through whom Dartmouth traces her academic ancestry to the ancient and
venerable Clare Hall, at Cambridge, where he graduated in 1626, the
contemporary of Thomas Dudley, Samuel Eaton, John Milton, John Norton,
Thomas Shepard, and Samuel Stone.

Coming a few years later to this country, he became a useful and an
honored citizen of the then new, but now old, historic town of Dedham,
from which place he removed to Medfield, being styled "founder" of
that town, where he remained till his death. He devoted his time
largely to teaching, although, having been educated for the ministry,
he rendered valuable service to the infant community as an occasional
preacher. His name is also conspicuous among the magistrates and
legislators of that period.[1]

[1] His daughter Rebecca married John Craft, whose birth is the
earliest on record among the pioneer settlers at Roxbury. Some
of his descendants (by another marriage) are conspicuous in
history. Medfield records connect the names of Fuller,
Chenery, and Morse with the Wheelock family.

In the character of his son, Eleazar Wheelock, of Mendon, we are told
there was a union of "the Christian and the soldier." Having command
of a corps of cavalry, he was "very successful in repelling the
irruptions of the Indians," although he treated them with "great
kindness," in times of peace. From him, his grandson and namesake
received "a handsome legacy for defraying the expenses of his public
education," and from him, too, he doubtless acquired, in some
measure, that peculiar interest in the Indian race which so largely
moulded his character and guided the labors of his life.

Near the time of Ralph Wheelock's arrival in America, were two other
arrivals worthy of notice: that of Thomas Hooker, at Cambridge, "the
one rich pearl with which Europe more than repaid America for the
treasures from her coasts," and that of the widowed Margaret
Huntington, at Roxbury, of which there is stil