Eleazar Wheelock

Eleazar Wheelock
Portrait by Joseph Steward
1st President of Dartmouth College
In office
1768–1779
Succeeded byJohn Wheelock
Personal details
Born(1711-04-22)April 22, 1711
Windham, Connecticut Colony, British America
DiedApril 24, 1779(1779-04-24) (aged 68)
Hanover, New Hampshire, United States
Alma materYale College (1733)

Eleazar Wheelock (April 22, 1711 – April 24, 1779) was an American Congregational minister, orator, and educator in present-day Columbia, Connecticut, for 35 years before founding Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. He had tutored Samson Occom, a Mohegan who became a Presbyterian minister and the second Native American to publish writings in English. Before founding Dartmouth, Wheelock founded and ran the Moor's Charity School in Connecticut to educate Native Americans. The college was primarily for the sons of American colonists.