Moor's Charity School was founded in 1754 in

Lebanon, Connecticut Lebanon is a town in New London County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 7,142 at the 2020 census. The town lies just to the northwest of Norwich, directly south of Willimantic, north of New London, and east of Hartford. The fa ...

(now in the town of Columbia), by the

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. ...

Calvinist Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John ...

David J. Silverman, ''Red Brethren: The Brothertown and Stockbridge Indians and the Problem of Race in Early America'', Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2010, p.71 minister

Eleazar Wheelock Eleazar Wheelock (April 22, 1711 – April 24, 1779) was an American Congregational minister, orator, and educator in Lebanon, Connecticut, for 35 years before founding Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. He had tutored Samson Occom, a Mohe ...

to provide education for Native Americans who desired to be

missionaries A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...

to the native tribes. Eleazar Wheelock became involved in education when

Samson Occom Samson Occom (1723 – July 14, 1792; also misspelled as Occum and Alcom) was a member of the Mohegan nation, from near New London, Connecticut, who became a Presbyterian cleric. Occom was the second Native American to publish his writings in Eng ...

, a Mohegan Native American, asked Rev. Wheelock for instruction. The English School with teacher Eleazar Wheelock and just one Native student, Samson Occom, transformed into Moor's Indian Charity School. From 1750 to the early 1770s forty-nine Native American boys and eighteen Native American girls were educated at the school. Between 1766 and 1768, Occom went on a fundraising tour of Britain to raise money for the school. The fundraising effort was extremely successful, raising 12,000 pounds in donations. Rev. Wheelock took the fundraising money, moved the school's location, and used the money to eventually build Dartmouth School. Controversy existed with this action. Samson Occom charged, "All the money has done is, it has made Doctor's heelockfamily very grand in the World."Murray, p.51 The school survived for only a fairly short time, as Connecticut was located far from Native American territories on the frontier of the British colonies in North America, and because Wheelock desired to expand the institution to include a school for Europeans. The institution was moved to

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the n ...

in 1770, where it was re-established as

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a Private university, private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded t ...

References

External links

Historic Buildings of Connecticut
{{Authority control Defunct schools in Connecticut Dartmouth College history Native American schools 1754 establishments in Connecticut Lebanon, Connecticut