Memoirs of Dr Wheelock

Elijah Parish (Published in 1811)

Numerous hands were employed, during the succeeding summer, in cutting and piling the timber, with a view to burn it, but the fire could not consume it until the second year, when it was more thoroughly dried. After the trees were removed the ground remained covered with stumps, the digging of which, and conveying them away, presented a still greater task than that already accomplished. Dr. Wheelock, desirous to derive, as soon as possible, the necessary provision from the soil, to free himself from irksome uncertainty as to supplies, very early employed a large number of laborers on the college and school lands in the vicinity.

Those unacquainted with the business of clearing new lands, in a country so heavily timbered, and preparing them for seed, can form but an imperfect idea of the requisite labor and expense. Large sums were thus necessarily expended. It unfortunately happened that the lands cleared for pasturage and grass were in a year or two covered with a wild, exuberant growth of wood, particularly the maple and cherry tree, and in a few years the labor of clearing the second time, became greater than the first.

The remarkable occurrences attending the removal of the school and college, and their establishment at Hanover, cannot be fully and clearly described, nor can they be conceived except by those who have witnessed similar scenes. The temper and spirit of the time may in some degree be imagined from a poem, written by one of the students on the spot, a member of the senior class, which I have taken the liberty to insert in the appendix.

Rev. Levi Frisbie, late of Ipswich, now deceased.