Trustees of Dartmouth College

Board of Trustees of Dartmouth College; Corporation

Hanover, NH

The Dartmouth Trustees functionally supplanted the American Trust, a body that had, beginning in 1768, governed donations for Moor’s Indian Charity School. Out of the initial 12 Dartmouth Trustees, five were former members of the American Trust (William Pitkin, Timothy Pitkin, James Lockwood, Benjamin Pomeroy, and William Patten). The trustees also included another Connecticut man, James Smalley, and Wheelock himself. The remaining five spots were filled by men active in New Hampshire politics: Governor John Wentworth, Theodore Atkinson, George Jaffrey, Daniel Pierce, and Peter Gilman. Wheelock went through substantial political maneuvering to obtain a charter for Dartmouth College, working carefully to hide his plans from the English Trust, an organization safeguarding the nearly £10,000 that had been raised in England for Moor’s Indian Charity School. While in favor of Wheelock moving his school to New Hampshire, the Trust opposed the idea of a charter that would limit its control of the funds. To assuage that concern, Wheelock kept separate accounts for the two schools while the Dartmouth Trustees disavowed, multiple times, any jurisdiction over Moor’s Indian Charity School, from the money raised for the school to the very name and legacy of Joshua Moore, the school’s early benefactor. As late as 1789, the Trustees continued to issue resolutions separating themselves from Moor’s. By declaring themselves distinct from Moor’s, the Dartmouth Trustees contributed to the legal idea that Dartmouth and Moor’s were separate institutions, whatever the reality of the situation.

Chase, Frederick. A history of Dartmouth College and the Town of Hanover, New Hampshire. 1891. Love, Deloss. Samson Occom and the Christian Indians of New England. Pilgrim Press 1899. Richardson, Leon. An Indian Preacher in England. Hanover: Dartmouth College Press 1933. Trustees of Dartmouth College. The Charter of Dartmouth College. http://www.dartmo.com/charter/charter.html Accessed 12/14/2013. Wheelock, Eleazar. "A plan for introducing religion, Learning Agriculture and Manufactures among the Pagans in America." Draft. July 7, 1763. Dartmouth College Archives 763407.2. Wheelock, Eleazar. A continuation of the narrative of the Indian charity-school, in Lebanon, in Connecticut : from the year 1768, to the incorporation of it with Dartmouth-college, and removal and settlement of it in Hanover, in the province of New-Hampshire. Hartford, 1771. Wheelock, Eleazar. A continuation of the narrative of the Indian charity school, begun in Lebanon, in Connecticut, now incorporated with Dartmouth-college, in Hanover, in the province of New-Hampshire. Portsmouth: Daniel and Robert Fowle, 1772. Wheelock, Eleazar. A continuation of the narrative of the Indian charity school, begun in Lebanon, in Connecticut, now incorporated with Dartmouth-college, in Hanover, in the province of New-Hampshire. Hartford, 1773. Wheelock, Eleazar. A continuation of the narrative of the Indian charity school, begun in Lebanon, in Connecticut, now incorporated with Dartmouth-college, in Hanover, in the province of New-Hampshire. Hartford: Ebenezer Watson, 1775.