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ELEAZAR WHEELOCKS, IN DIRECT LINE, STILL LIVE – IN TEXAS

February 1962 SEYMOUR E. WHEELOCK '40

ELEAZAR WHEELOCKS, IN DIRECT LINE, STILL LIVE – IN TEXAS SEYMOUR E. WHEELOCK '40 February 1962

Feature

February 1962 SEYMOUR E. WHEELOCK '40

Five Male Descendants Bearing Wheelock's Name Refute the Long-held Belief that the Line Had "Daughtered Out."

(Same Name But Not Related)

1779: Ralph, epileptic, erratic, and single; James, John, and Eleazar Jr. Despite the promise that was implied by the fact that these latter three all were successfully and happily married, fulfillment of the genealogic sort was lacking. In two generations, only women survived in the lines of John and James.

But to Eleazar Jr. and his wife, Thankful Pennock, there was born in Hanover in March 1793, Eleazar Louis Ripley Wheelock, named for Wheelock's son-in-law, Sylvanus Ripley. When Eleazar Louis was 12 years old, the family (which ultimately included three other boys and one sister) moved to the Ohio frontier stream called Boat Run. Boat Run was apparently a tributary of the Ohio above Cincinnati along which a few pioneer families settled. There was no formal town on the site. Here his father was a successful merchant and here, when Eleazar Louis was 18, his father died.

It is hard to follow the partially documented wanderings of this young pioneer in frontier America, but about 1818 he married Mary Prickett in Louisville, Kentucky, and by 1832 he was known to be involved in the Black Hawk wars along the warrior-ridden bluffs of the Rock and the Wisconsin Rivers. His brothers apparently all died young, all without male issue.

Some hint of his restless personality, so different from his stolid grandfather's, is contained in a letter from a friend to a Colonel in the Texan Army:

"I take the liberty of commending to your friendship Colonel E. L. R. Wheetock, a friend of mine, formerly of the U. S. Army. Assuring you that you will meet one to whom any honorable society will always owe much, but his independence unfits him for the latitude of these parts. He came with the view of making a grand and liberal settlement in Texas; his scheme will please you both. As a lover of the welfare of our country and with reference to your own colony's safety more especially; I recommend to you one in whom you may fully confide, with pleasure and delight."

In 1833 Mexican lands in Texas were readily available and from Quincy, Illinois to the endless sky-filled vegas he went, where as Ranger and Minute Man, surveyor, mine operator, and colonizer he roamed the sharply contested expanding limits of our second largest state.

Apparently he inherited some of the educational" urges of his grandfather for he planned a State University in 1844 and organized the "Texas University Company," but before a site was chosen and the first shovelful of sunbaked earth was turned, Indian savagery on the Brazos erupted again and sober dreams were put aside while the dreamer went to fight.

The end of a many-faceted and febrile career was sudden and took place far from home in 1847. Colonel Wheelock had set up a mining venture, the Western Mining Company, and had gone to Philadelphia to purchase mining and smelting machinery. On his return to Texas, he stopped in Edwardsville, Illinois to visit with his wife's family and was taken with a sudden and fatal illness.

Colonel Wheelock's remains are at peace in Woodlawn Cemetery in Edwardsville.

But the genetic steps to immortality were again fulfilled; a daughter and three sons still lived in the town their hardriding and spirited father founded.

The daughter, Annette, married three times, her first two husbands dying violent deaths in the grim days of Indian warfare and her last aiding her in populating, ultimately, a sizable segment of the Texas hinterlands with more than 175 persons who could call upon Eleazar Wheelock as ancestor. Naturally, none of these bore the Wheelock surname and this characteristic they shared with the many fine individuals in New England and the Midwest who descend from the distaff side.

But the Wheelock name still lives, in direct line, and for this we must credit the fading memories of David, George, and William, Colonel E. L. R. Wheelock's three sons. David was with his father in the Ranger Company and the Minute Men. He fought at Buena Vista and in the Confederate Army (raise no eyebrows; at his death the Reverend Eleazar owned several slaves).

One son of David still lives, 76-year-old Robert Wheelock of Austin, Texas. A grandson and two great-grandsons also stand up to be counted in Harlingen, Texas: Eleazar Louis Russell Wheelock Sr. and Eleazar Louis Russell Wheelock Jr., a student at the, University of Texas, and young Jerry. The time-honored name Ripley had been discarded in deference to the affection rendered a close friend named Russell.

William and George also fought with honor and enthusiasm in the Texas regiments of the Confederate Army. A son of George, named John Wheelock, resides today in Dawson, Texas, 92 years old, the end of his line, with a full and rich memory of the early days in Wheelock, Texas.

Four men and a boy remain, therefore, comprising three generations of descent along the genealogic tree, all living in Texas, all aware in varying degrees of their romantic background and their direct blood inheritance from steel-fisted pioneers in Texas history and from a determined New England theologian and teacher of Indians, whose name they bear.

Interestingly enough, none of the surnamed descendants of the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock has attended Dartmouth College for many generations. His sons did and their sons possibly did, but that is all, although the alumni roster for times past and present undoubtedly holds the names of many who carry Eleazar's genes but not his name.

In the hot sun that shines on Wheelock, Texas there stands a stone inscribed as follows:

"Wheelock — founded in 1833 by Col. E. L. R. Wheelock - soldier, lawyer, educator, - one of the organizers of Robertson's Colony - Captain of Texas Rangers - died in Edwardsville, Illinois."

Grave of Col. Eleazar L. R. Wheelock,grandson of Dartmouth's founder, whocarried the family name west to Texas.

John Ripley Wheelock, 92 years old,of Dawson, Texas, the last of his branchof the family, is the great-great-grandsonof Dartmouth's Eleazar Wheelock.

Eleazar Louis Russell Wheelock Sr. of Harlingen, Texas, the great-great-greatgrandson of Dartmouth's founder, and his sons Eleazar Jr., a student at the Universityof Texas, and Jerry, 17, a high school student.