New Wheelock Letter

ALTHOUGH Eleazar Wheelock was a prolific writer of letters, these, are becoming more and more rare, partly because Dartmouth has been collecting them for so long. Through the generosity of Hamilton Gibson '97, another has recently been added to the College Archives, which now has over 2,000 in its keeping.

Dated December II, 1775, this latest letter was part of the Mss. collection of Emil Hurja of Washington, D. C., and had never been catalogued. It is concerned with one of Wheelock's perennial problems: the need for goods for his school without funds available to pay for them. Writing to Barnabas Deane, who was connected with a prosperous firm of traders in Wethersfield, Conn., Eleazar Wheelock lays his cards on the table: . . our civil state is so confused and distorted that there is no such thing as collecting debts. ... I have many hundred pounds now justly due but know not how or where to get twenty. However, if you can think yourself safe in trusting to me under such circumstances as Surety for the Bearer Mr. Jabez Bingham you may deal with him to the amount of 300 pounds lawful money."

This plea for credit was written less than four years before Wheelock's death, when his English funds were exhausted and the prospect of prolonged war threatened the College's continued existence.