On the same day (July 5th) these members took the oaths required by the charter, and ex-Gov. Benning Wentworth, in fulfilment of his promise made five years before, conveyed to the trustees his five-hundred-acre lot in the southwest corner of Hanover. Within little more than six weeks thereafter, Wheelock had taken up his abode upon it "in his log hut in the wilderness," before the people of Haverhill had fairly discovered that the college was lost to them. They have never known precisely how it came about.1

The other members of the board qualified at Hartford, before Wheelock, July 17, and assented to the location, with a condition in Wheelock's behalf that he should be "accommodated with a suitable farm at or near the College; apprehending his past labors and expenses and his present connection with said institution justly merit such consideration."

What arguments were used at Portsmouth, and what opposition overcome, we do not know; Wheelock in his Narrative says merely that "in consequence of our report and representation of facts, the trustees unanimously agreed that the southwesterly corner of Hanover, adjoining upon Lebanon, was the place above any to fix it, and that for many reasons; namely:

"'Tis most central on the river, and most convenient for transportation up and down upon the river; as near as any to the Indians; convenient communication with Crown Point on Lake Champlain, and with Canada; being less than sixty miles to the former, and one hundred and forty to the latter; and water carriage to each, excepting about thirty miles (as they say); and will be on the road which must soon be opened from Portsmouth to Crown Point; and within a mile of the only convenient place for a bridge across said river. The situation is on a beautiful plain, the soil fertile and easy of cultivation. The tract on which the College is fixed, lying mostly in one body and convenient for improvement in the towns of Hanover and Lebanon, contains upwards of three thousand acres."

1 The discarded site was visited by President Dwight in 1797. He describes the place, rather slightingly, as “a yellow pine plain, on which is built a lean-looking village, called Haverhill Upper Street, and inferior to any other which we had hitherto passed. I was unable to account for the existence of a settlement on this hopeless soil until I came to the brow of the plain. Here I discovered a succession of rich intervales, extending along the river several miles, and furnishing a most inciting field to industrious agriculture. The inhabitants of the plain were, I presume, allured to this spot by so tempting an object; but they must have been sadly disappointed. From the skirts of this settlement we discovered several houses, whose brilliant appearance plainly showed that their owners had pre-occupied all these fruitful lands, and left the inhabitants of the plain to derive their subsistence from the parsimonious grounds in their neighborhood" (Dwight's Travels, ii. 121).

A public notice, dated Aug. 23, 1770, inserted by Wheelock in the newspapers, announced the establishment of the College, describing its site in similar language as upon "a choice tract of lands of more than 3,300 acres, which butts upon the falls in the river called White River Falls, and is the only place convenient for a bridge across Connecticut River, it being but eight rods wide, with well-elevated rocks for abutments on each side, and on a straight line from Portsmouth to Crown Point, to which is a good road; and is a place which the Indian tribes far and near have frequented and used as a hunting-ground till the late wars, with many other inviting circumstances." 1

To the English trust Wheelock wrote, July 29, in terms identical with those of his public notice, adding as a special advantage that near two hundred acres of the lands were choice meadow, annually overflowed by the river and by a large brook (Mink Brook) which runs into it; that the tract was pretty well watered and well proportioned for all kinds of tillage and for fuel.

"The College [he wrote] will stand upon the body of lands designed for cultivation, which situation will be well accommodated to my plan of introducing labor as the principal or only diversion necessary for the students' health, by which means they may not only contribute much to their own support under the conduct of a prudent and skilful overseer, but young Indians with English boys may be instructed and improved in the arts of agriculture, without the least impediment to their studies; and I see not why I ha'nt a good prospect of supporting a large number as soon as those lands may be brought under improvement.

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'A young Indian from Canada on his hunting tour came to us at Haverhill and seemed much pleased with the design we were upon, and promised to come to school as soon as it should be settled in those parts and capable to receive him. . . . I have employed an agent and laborers to build barracks or small houses, . . . and am preparing to remove immediately, unless a report very lately come among us, that an army of worms has so prevailed as to cut off a great part of the crops, should be so confirmed as to convince me I must stay for want of subsistence. I don't hear of any men of consequence in New England who are now inimical to this rising institution, excepting in Boston, and none there but those who were of the late annihilated society."

1 That these falls in the river were frequented even in prehistoric times, is attested by the fact that about a hundred years ago Mr. Luke Dewey, then a child, digging with others a cave in the western bank, found deep down under the roots of a very large pine-stump, near the middle bar, a lot of curiously wrought pottery, which they kept for a time to furnish their play-house. Though they never to old age forgot the incident, it did not occur to them that the pieces were worth preserving.

There were in Wheelock's day no Indian settlements nearer than St. Francis. There are indeed extensive Indian remains near the river in that part of Haverhill called "Horse-Meadow," and Rev. Grant Powers, in his sketches of the Coos country, states that in 1761 a remnant of the Indians were still living on the meadows there, on both sides of the river, but so much weakened and discouraged that they had ceased to cultivate the ground, which was in consequence covered with a luxuriant growth of tall wild grass. While the country remained in their possession the Indians passed much back and forth between St. Francis and the lower part of New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The settlement at Haverhill was their stopping place. South of it they had several routes, one passing down the valley of Baker's River, and another down the Connecticut to Hanover, thence over the heights to Lebanon, by the route afterward used for the fourth New Hampshire turnpike, and on to the Merrimac valley. A spring on the southern side of "Mount Support," about three and one half miles below the College, is said to have been their usual stopping-place, and a large stone, with a peculiar rounded surface, still pointed out near it, they are said to have habitually used in curing skins.

The announcement of the decision, so far from allaying the popular excitement, increased it. The clamor rose to a tempest. Wheelock was assailed in the most scurrilous manner. Even the confidence of his friends was shaken. Colonel Moulton, of Hampton, wrote from Orford, August 22: —

"I have been in Portsmouth, and there to hear all mouths opened against you, and laughing at me and all my neighborhood, flinging, Ah! I always told you Dr. Wheelock was making a purse to himself; and now this of fixing the College proves it.' Your usefulness at present in the dear Redeemer's kingdom seems over. Oh, sir! consider, this affair seems to overthrow in the minds of sinners all you have been building up so many years, and it is currently talked that those that have largely subscribed will not pay one farthing, except forced, if the College stands in Hanover; and others say it can't prosper, for it's all a jockey trick from first to last. Dear sir, I am constrained to let you know what is the common report, out of love to you... Now it looks dark, but as thick as the cloud is, I hope it will come light again. Pray, sir, if you have been misled by men, hearken to the voice of a Province; and if the College can yet give peace by altering its place, pray, if it's in your power, let it be done. They likewise talk about Mr. Pomeroy for not delivering their letters as a confirmation of the scheme."

Similar slanders were also rife in Connecticut, and did not readily abate. Wheelock himself wrote to a friend as late as October, 1771: "The great clamor in the country is (and that by which great numbers are prejudiced) that I'm wholly in a plan to aggrandize and enrich myself and family."

Nor did he escape like damaging suspicions among his friends on the other side of the water, several circumstances conspiring temporarily to estrange them. They were (as will presently appear) greatly offended by the charter, and ready to suspect his integrity, as they did at first in the earlier matter of the remittances of Whitaker, Even his old and stanch friend Whitefield doubted. On his last arrival in New England, shortly after Wheelock's removal to Hanover, he had his doubts cleared up; but he told Dr. Whitaker "that he himself and every one of the trust in England had conceived of the matter as if Wheelock had a farm of one or two thousand acres which he was to make the best of by building, and buying or hiring help with the money in England to improve it,—something like his own estate in Georgia." Of course such gross misconceptions as these were less likely to be permanently injurious because of their very extravagance. But they served for the time seriously to aggravate the difficulties under which Wheelock necessarily labored, and in some quarters were never wholly removed. To Colonel Moulton he wrote:

"The site for Dartmouth College was not determined by any private interest, or to favor any party on earth, but the Redeemer's. When I plainly perceived what struggles private interest could occasion in that matter, and that I had unavoidably a cross, and no small one, to take up in the accomplishment of it, I determined to divest myself of every occasion of bias on my mind, to know neither son nor nephew, and to have no object but the interest of the Redeemer's kingdom. I saw plainly enough what course I might take to secure the favor of great men, and with that a good interest to myself; but I did then, and do still, I trust, through grace, despise the motives while I can have them at no less expense than sacrificing the Redeemer's interest for them.

"The site of Dartmouth College is no doubt far preferable to any other place we were invited to take a view of upon the river; and because there had been so diverse and contrary accounts concerning the place, we faithfully spent almost three days in viewing it, and we did find the accounts given in favor of it to be strictly and fully true. And so they are esteemed by all impartial judges, so far as I heard, who have given themselves leisure to examine the I had no connections nor interest in this government that could

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have the least influence upon my mind in that matter, nor had any others I consulted therein any influence to determine me of the most suitable place for it. . . . I am almost worn out, and have one foot in eternity, and feel myself to have but little to hope for or fear from an ungrateful world."

General Bayley wrote Wheelock a kind and loyal letter, though fearing that the College would not prosper, "as the place is distasteful to the government and to the eastern part of Massachusetts; . . . and many donors did say to me that they would never give any more, nor even pay what they had subscribed, if the place be not altered." He added that if it could be removed even then to Haverhill, he could raise enough to build the whole.

Landowners of Hanover gave further opportunity for criticism by doubling the price of their lands, or withdrawing them altogether from sale. Complaints and protests poured in upon the Governor in every form; but he stood manfully by the decision as the wisest that could have been made, for which, considering the strength of his earlier convictions, he is much to be admired. Indeed, knowing his unimpeachable integrity, and the high character of the other trustees, their unanimous support in this crisis affords (if it were needed) the strongest proof that no stigma can justly attach to Wheelock himself. The following letter displays the Governor at this period in a most pleasing light:

WENTWORTH HOUSE, 7 Sept., 1770.

REV SIR, Mr. House and his party arrived here yesterday, and brot me your letter of the 1st instant, the contents whereof I note; also of yours inclosing the obliging poem composed by one of your pupils [Frisbie], wherein I find much cause to thank the author, and many shining marks of poetical talents, enriched by a warm benevolence of heart, which I hope time will ripen and reward. As I should not attempt the former, the latter I shall rejoice to exert my influence toward whenever it may be advantageous to him.

The unreasonable price demanded for lands in Hanover, particularly mentioned by Mr. Patten, does not much surprise me, altho' it gives me no advan tageous opinion of those who are so wretched as to endeavor such impositions; they are to be pitied, wanting hearts and loving only sordid money. However, I dare foretell that a little time will reduce them to more reason. able terms.

Mr. House informs me of a good road to be made from Hanover to Win. nipisioket Pond, in 35 miles, and I have required the respective proprietors of the soil forthwith to clear and make it convenient; which being done will, I hope, convince by fact the inhabitants of this Province that the situ