st, richest fruit,--his precious dust will slumber "till the
heavens be no more," and not till then will the Christian scholar, who
lingers among the hills of central New England, cease to pay his
devotions at the grave of

Eleazar Wheelock.

CHAPTER X.

PROGRESS DURING THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE SECOND PRESIDENT, JOHN
WHEELOCK.

The first President of the College, availing himself of a provision in
the Charter, named three persons in his will, some one of whom he
desired should be his successor in the office. These were his son, Mr.
John Wheelock, Rev. Joseph Huntington, of Coventry, Conn., and Prof.
Sylvanus Ripley. Mr. Wheelock, although a young man, in response to
the somewhat earnest solicitation of the Trustees, after mature
deliberation decided to accept the position. His son-in-law, Rev. Dr.
Allen, gives the leading points in his earlier life in the following
language:

"He was born [a son by the father's second marriage] at Lebanon,
Conn., January 28, 1754, and graduated in Dartmouth's first class, in
1771. In 1772, he was appointed a tutor, and was devoted to the
business of instruction until the beginning of the Revolution. In
1775, he was a member of the [N. H.] Assembly. In the spring of 1777,
he was appointed a Major in the service of New York, and in November,
a Lieutenant-colonel in the Continental army under Colonel Bedel. In
1778 he marched a detachment from Coos to Albany. By direction of
Stark he conducted an expedition into the Indian country. At the
request of General Gates, he entered his family, and continued with
him, until he was recalled to Hanover by the death of his father, in
1779."

The following pages, extracted from the "Sketches of the History of
Dartmouth College and Moor's Charity School," prepared and published
under President Wheelock's sanction, are deemed worthy of insertion in
this connection.

"The founder and first president spent nine years in planting
and raising up a new society, in converting forests into
fields,--supporting many youths on charity. Persevering through
difficulties, without any stipend for his labors, the seminary grew in
vital strength;--but destitute of patronage in America, its resources
in Europe mostly expended, and the residue wholly obstructed, beset
with calamities by the troubles and disasters of the Revolutionary
War, it was reduced, in childhood, to nakedness and want, in the year
1779. Soon after the treasurer, making an estimat