school, and Mr. Joshua Moor, from whom the school received its name, gave a small house and shop and about 2 acres of land for its use and support. After receiving this gift it seemed best that the school should have a charter, in order to place it upon a firmer basis and inspire confidence of its success in those that might be disposed to contribute to its resources.

While efforts were being made to secure a charter subscription papers were circulated throughout the colonies, and many persons promised to contribute to the support of the school when it should become a body corporate. Societies and individuals, in both the mother country and the colonies, hearing of the enterprise aided it by money and influence. The agents of the Scotch Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge voted in May, 1761

That the Rev. Mr. Wheelock, of Lebanon, be desired to fit out David Fowler, an Indian youth, to accompany Mr. Samson Occom, going on a mission to the Oneidas; that said David be supported on said mission for a term not exceeding four months; and that he endeavor, on his return, to bring with him a number of Indian boys, not exceeding three, to be put under Mr. Wheelock's care and instruction, and that £20 be put into Mr. Wheelock's hands to carry this design into execution.

In November of the same year (1761) the General Court of the province of Massachusetts Bay voted Mr. Wheeloek £72 for the education, clothing, and boarding of six Iroquois children for one year. Not long after this Mr. Wheelock reported on his work for Indian youth the following facts among others:

I have had two upon my hands since 1754; four since April, 1757; five since April, 1759; seven since November, 1760; and eleven since August, 1761. And for some time I have had twenty-five, three of the number English youth. One of the Indian lads, Jacob Wooley, is now in his last year at New Jersey College.

Continuing his narrative, he says:

Two others are sent here by the Rev. Mr. Brainerd, and are designed for trades; the one for a blacksmith (a trade much wanted among the Indians), and is to go to his apprenticeship as soon as a good place is ready for him; the other is designed for a carpenter and joiner, and is to go to an apprenticeship as soon as he has learned to read and write. Another of the Indians is son to the sachem at Mohegan, and is heir-apparent; he is somewhat infirm as to his bodily health. For his support last year I have charged nothing more than £10 lawful money, granted by the honorable London commissioners. Several of my scholars are considerably well accomplished for school-masters, and seven or eight will likely be well fitted for interpreters in a few years more. And four of this number are girls, whom I have hired women in this neighborhood to instruct in all the arts of good housewifery, they attending the school one day in a week to be instructed in writing, etc., till they shall be fit for an apprenticeship, to be taught to make men's and women's apparel, etc., in order to accompany these boys, when they shall have occasion for such assistance in the business of their mission. And six of them are Mohawks, obtained pursuant and according to the direction of the honorable General Assembly of the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, and are learning to speak, write, and read English: And the most of them make good proficiency therein.

The expenses of the school from December 18, 1754, to November 27, 1762, were £566 28. 5d. The pastors of more than twenty neighboring

churches at this time expressed their approval of Mr. Wheelock and his work in the following terms:

We verily believe a disinterested regard to the advancement of the Redeemer's kingdom and the good of His Majesty's dominions in America were the governing motives which at first induced the Rev. Mr. Wheelock to enter upon the great affair, and to risk his own private interest as he has done since in carrying it on; so we esteem his plan to be good, his measures prudently and well concerted, his endowments peculiar, his zeal fervent, and his endeavors indefatigable for the accomplish. ing this design; and we know no man like-minded who will naturally care for their state.

A list of the charity scholars under Mr. Wheelock's tuition from 1754 to 1767 contains the names of sixty-two persons, eighteen of them women. Among the persons educated at this time were Joseph Brant, the famous Mohawk, and several others who afterwards became successful missionaries among their kindred, and whose labors are mentioned elsewhere in this report.

The endowment, incorporation, and location of the school occupied the attention and engaged the efforts of its founder during the years immediately preceding 1770. Occum visited Great Britain for the purpose of soliciting funds, and through his instrumentality over £9,000 were collected in England, and between £2,000 and £3,000 in Scotland. The former fund was placed in the hands of a board of London trustees, with the Earl of Dartmouth at its head; the latter was deposited with the Scotch Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge.

The objects to be gained by the possession of a charter were stated by a warm friend of the school, William Smith, of New York, as follows: Beyond all doubt it would be best to have a charter, incorporating a number of warm friends in America, near to each other to direct and govern the school, and some reputable friends in England for correspondence and protectors. This is the only way to render the project permanent, to secure wisdom and counsel equal to the work, to defend it against opposition, and to encourage future donations. An incorporated body will not only acquire rights maintainable by law in the courts of justice, but command the favor of the officers of the government, who, without that sanction, may, at such distances from the Crown, oppress the undertaking a thousand ways and utterly destroy it.

#

A charter was never obtained for Moor's Indian Charity School, but when its location was changed to New Hampshire, John Wentworth, governor of that province, took the opportunity to create, for the benefit of his people, a higher institution of learning. He endowed the new corporation with all the powers of a university and named it Dartmouth College. It was designed that the Indian school should be connected with it as a subservient institution.

The permanent location of the Indian school was a question which greatly perplexed Mr. Wheelock. Among the localities considered with reference to the determination of the problem were the lands on the Mississippi given to officers who had served in the old French war; several places in the Middle States; Springfield and other towns in Massachusetts; and western New Hampshire. The last named region S. Ex. 95- -7

was selected by the English trustees of the school, to whom Mr. Wheelock, when he found out how delicate and responsible a matter was the location of the school, represented the situations open to it. But as neither the trustees in England nor the recently granted charter of Dartmouth College had fixed upon any particular site for the institution, Mr. Wheelock, in the spring of 1770, undertook, with the assistance of two friends, "to examine thoroughly the several places proposed within the limits prescribed, for 50 or 60 miles on or near said [Connecticut] river, and to hear all the reasons and arguments that could be offered in favor of each of them."

Eight weeks were spent in this exploration, and a report was made on the strength of which the trustees of the college "unanimously agreed that the southwesterly corner of Hanover, adjoining upon Lebanon, was the place above any other to fix it in." Thus superior and inferior institutions were established at Hanover, N. H., the latter exclusively for Indian youth, and the former primarily for their education. Its charter states that it was created "for the education and instruction of youths of the Indian tribes in this land, in reading, writing, and all parts of learning which shall appear necessary and expedient for civilizing and Christianizing the children of pagans, as well as in all liberal arts and sciences, and also of English youths and any others." The trustees of the college were empowered "to pay all such missionaries and schoolmasters as shall be authorized, appointed, and employed by them for civilizing, Christianizing, and instructing the Indian natives of this land, their several allowances," and other necessary and contingent charges. "The Indians are the first object in the charter," says President Wheelock, "and the first object of the lands secured thereby, and of many other subscriptions and donations made to it."

Moor's Indian Charity School and Dartmouth College were thus asso. ciated in attempts to promote Indian civilization. It became necessary at the outset to define their relations to each other. At the first meeting of the trustees of the college they resolved that the charter gave them no right of jurisdiction but over the college, and that the school remained still under the same patronage, authority, and jurisdiction as it was under before the charter was given.

The English trustees of the Indian school misunderstood the movements of Mr. Wheelock, and disapproved his inclination to devote much attention to the education of English youth. In a reply to a letter in which he assures them that "the charter was never designed to convey the least power or control of any funds collected in Europe," they say: When we consider that the money collected here was given for the express purpose of "creating, establishing, endowing, and maintaining an Indian "charity-school and a suitable number of missionaries to be employed in the Indian country, for the instruction of Indians in the Christian "Religion," and for no other purpose whatsoever, we can not but look upon the charter you have obtained, and your intention of building a college and educating English youths, as going beyond the line by which both you and we are circumscribed.

This letter also demanded a continuation of the narrative of the school, and in the portion which was sent in the same year President Wheelock defends his action in combining the education of English youth with that of the Indians. He had been disappointed in many of his Indian pupils. Some of them had done excellently as school-masters for a single season, or until their schools were broken up by a hunting tour. Then the scholars were scattered never to be gathered again; and some of the teachers became the victims of intemperance, and others the slaves of licentiousness. He writes of his discouragements and of his modified plan, as follows:

The most melancholy part of the account which I have here to relate, and which has occasioned me the greatest weight of sorrow, has been the bad conduct and behavior of such as have been educated here, after they have left the school, and been put into business abroad; and it is that from which, I think, I had the fullest evidence that a greater proportion of English youths must be fitted for missionaries; and enough of them to take the lead entirely, and conduct the whole affair of Christianizing and civilizing the savages without any dependence upon their own sons as leaders, in this matter, or any further than they are employed under the immediate inspection and direction of Englishmen.

The early classes of Dartmouth College contained many members whose purpose was to fit themselves for missionary work among the Indians; but the breaking out of the Revolutionary War and the increased hostility to the settlers shown by nearly all the Indians limited the work which it was possible to do, and turned many prospective missionaries to other occupations.

The first published report of the school, after its removal to Hanover, was issued in 1771. Then there were twenty-four charity scholars, eighteen English, five Indian, and one of mixed blood. The teacher was Mr. McClure, a graduate of Yale College. During the next year there were from five to nine Indian scholars, and quite a number of English charity scholars fitting themselves for missionary labors. In 1773 there were sixteen or seventeen Indian pupils, and as many English. In 1775 President Wheelock says:

The number of Indians in this school since my last narrative [1773] has been from sixteen to twenty-one, and the whole number of charity or dependent scholars has been about thirty; and the whole number of dependent and independent scholars in the college and school about an hundred.

By this time the funds committed to the London trustees had been expended, and the school was in destitution. It had no patronage in America, and no help could come from abroad. Thus "it was reduced in childhood to nakedness and want." Its founder died in 1779, while the troubles and calamities of the war were pressing hard upon his schools. His son, Rev. John Wheelock, succeeded him and immedi ately began efforts to repair the fortunes of the school. In 1782 he went to Europe, obtained a considerable sum of money in Holland, and reclaimed the Scotch fund, which had been originally provided for Indian education.

The debts of the school were paid and the income from this

fund became a means of support. The Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge also resumed its contributions.

A glimpse of the school is given, after many years, in the following quotation:

Joseph Brant, so memorable in the Indian annals for his improvements and exploits, sent two sons to be members of the same school in which he had been educated, with letters of grateful remembrance of the founder, as, to whom, under God, he owed his elevation above the savage. One of them, more promising, died not long after his return and many hopes were buried with him. In 1802 the Rev. Mr. Merrill, then preceptor of the school, visited the tribes in Lower Canada. The chiefs of St. Francis gratefully rejoiced to place their children in the path of instruction; and several of them were received. Three in general, and at times four, from the St. Francis Caghnawaga and Algonquin tribes have been maintained annually at the school till last year. By obstruction of intercourse and interruptions by the war, there is only one at present; others are expected as soon as peaceful communications are opened. All these have been supported at the school with every necessary, by the interest of its fund in the care of the society, through the nfedium of their commissioners, at the rate of about $130 per annum for each. Generally they were regular and attentive, their improvements useful; and since their return their conduct becoming, so far as we have heard.

When finally Dr. Wheelock was removed from the presidency of Dartmouth College, one of the reasons assigned was that "he had taken a youth who was not an Indian, but adopted by an Indian tribe, and supported him in Moor's school on the Scotch fund, which is granted for the sole purpose of instructing and civilizing Indians." This is equivalent to a vindication of his use of the funds of the school in all other respects.

Among the early graduates of Dartmouth College, who labored as missionaries to the Indians were Levi Frisbee, James Dean, Andrew Jud. son, Daniel Simons, Peter Pohquonnoppeet, and Louis Vincent. The last three were Indians, the first of whom, a Narragansett, became a missionary, and at last fell a victim to drunkenness; the second, a Stockbridge, was a chief of his tribe, and the third, a Lorette, was long a useful teacher among his own people.

Reviewing the efforts of President Eleazar Wheelock to promote the civilization and enlightenment of the Indians, Rev. William Allen, D. D., says:

If it should be asked what success attended the efforts of Dr. Wheelock to communicate the Gospel to the Indian nations, it may be replied that he accomplished something for their benefit, and that great and insuperable obstacles, in the providence of God, prevented him from accomplishing more. It was soon after he sent out missionaries into the wilderness that the controversy with Great Britain blighted his fair and encouraging prospects. During the last four years of his life there was actual war, in which many of the Indian tribes acted with the enemy. Yet the Oneidas, to whom Mr. Kirkland was sent as a missionary, kept the hatchet buried during the whole Revolutionary struggle, and by means of this mission, probably, were a multitude of frontier settlements saved from the tomahawk and the scalping knife.

Samson Occom was the earliest Indian pupil of Mr. Wheelock that became widely known. He was a Mohegan, born in 1723, converted to Christianity in 1740, and received into Mr. Wheelock's family in 1743.