Stone Honors Wheelock

A STONE MARKER has been erected on the village green in Columbia, Conn., by the Connecticut Society of Colonial Dames of America to commemorate the founding of Moor's Indian Charity School, the forerunner of Dartmouth.

About four and one-half feet high, the monument has the head of an Indian carved in a circular relief near the top to represent Samson Occum, Rev. Eleazar Wheelock's first Indian student who helped to obtain funds from the Earl of Dartmouth and others in England for the establishment of the College.

The monument stands almost directly in front of the Columbia Congregational Church, near the site of the first Indian School. Wheelock began teaching in his own home and later used a small white schoolhouse which now stands behind the church.

The inscription on the monument reads: "In 1755 Eleazar Wheelock D.D., Minister at Lebanon Crank (now Columbia), founded near this spot Moor's Indian Charity School. In 1769 the school was moved to Hanover, New Hampshire. From this beginning arose Dartmouth College, Eleazar Wheelock, President, 17691779. Erected by the Connecticut Society of the Colonial Dames of America—l 949."

The stone was presented to the town at special ceremonies on June 14. The Society also offered five prizes to grammar school students in Columbia for the best essays on "The Life of Eleazar Wheelock."

Courtesy The Hartford Courant