There were upon charity at Wheelock's death five or six Indians and several white youths, for whose support, after the exhaustion of the English funds and the cessation of the Scotch remittances, Dr. Wheelock had made provision, beyond the gifts of Congress, out of his own resources to the amount of the £1,000 mentioned in his will, which stood as an indebtedness to his estate. The burden of this debt the College assumed in the shape of an annuity of £50 a year to Ralph as stipulated in the will. This the College faithfully paid during Ralph's long life, $166.67 each year until his death in 1817,- much of the time with great difficulty, and often by the sale of lands at ruinous sacrifice. So far as can be ascertained, nothing was ever realized by the College from the legacy beyond a reimbursement from the Scotch fund in 1793 of about eight years' annuity. Over £600 of debts connected with the School, but legally chargeable to Wheelock's estate, were also assumed by the College. Of these, that which gave the most trouble was the judgment obtained against him in 1774 in the court of Hampshire Co., Mass., upon the suit concerning the logs sent down in 1772. To the payment of this and other debts the board in 1779 appropriated eight hundred acres of land in Lebanon. The judgment was finally adjusted in 1784 by giving notes for £44 L. M. and for £400 in silver at 6s. 8d. the ounce. The principal of these old debts was repaid at last out of the Scotch fund in 1793. To Dr. Crane for professional attendance on Wheelock in his The class of 1783 graduated thirteen, and the numbers from that time rapidly increased. It has been remarked as a curious fact that the Dartmouth students were drawn at this period in large degree from the old settlements in Connecticut, from the very hearthstone of Yale College. Of the first class of four, three were from Connecticut; the second class numbered two, both from Connecticut; the third six, five from Connecticut; and the fifth eleven, eight from Connecticut. Of the eighty-nine graduates of the College in the nine years of Dr. Wheelock's presidency, forty-five came from Connecticut; and out of two hundred and eighty-four graduates in the first twenty classes, from 1771 to 1790, Connecticut furnished one hundred and twenty one, -some of them, it is true, coming from families which had emigrated to the New Hampshire Grants. Reasons for this have been found, not only in the personal popularity of Dr. Wheelock, but in the sympathies surviving from the Great Awakening, and from Yale's hostile attitude to that movement. See Dr. Tarbox in the "New Englander," November, 1883. last sickness the trustees gave fifteen acres of land west of the village near the river. They also adjusted a claim for £120 which had been given by John Phillips to John P. Ripley, on account of his name, and which, intrusted to Dr. Wheelock, had been expended by him in 1774 upon the foundations of the new building. The College furthermore (until the Scotch fund should be again available) assumed the burden of the future support of the five Indians, and of one of the English boys, Hugh Holmes, of Montreal, who had originally come to Wheelock under an arrangement for reciprocal benefits to be conferred on Wheelock's sons by Holmes's parents, and was unable to return home in the exciting, troubled state of public affairs. The next year, August, 1780, the rest of the charity students were taken into the care of the College. They were exhorted to do what they could by their labor to ease the burden, but were assured of their support. Dr. Wheelock, being Treasurer as well as President, had exercised exclusive control of the finances; and notwithstanding some mild suggestions from the Governor and others, and some informal complaints from the board, no complete accounts of the College affairs had ever been submitted, though a partial auditing was made in 1778. The accounts were now with some difficulty brought to as perfect an adjustment as possible by a committee appointed by the board, and a treasurer was elected. President John Wheelock retained, nevertheless, control of the management and disposition of the lands confirmed to him in 1784 under the name of "Financier." Not the least among the perplexities to which the board fell heir was Wheelock's dispute about the civil rights of the College under the charter; and at the first meeting, in 1779, a committee was raised to inquire and report upon it, which wisely suffered it quietly to die. But the most trying of all were the inextricable difficulties concerning the township of Landaff, which it will be necessary by and by to explain at large. Added to all this, the College buildings had fallen into decay and required immediate repairs, and the laws prescribed for the government of the students demanded prompt revision. No fixed body of rules had as yet been promulgated. Excepting a few brief articles voted by the board in 1775, the rules consisted of tradition, or of fragments put forth by the President as occasion required, under the general authority conferred in 1770. Ill-natured complaints had not been wanting that law was sometimes made to fit the facts after their occurrence; and we know that the Governor, as early as 1774, strongly but ineffectually advocated a fixed and written code. The trustees now also left the subject to be dealt with by the "executive authority," by whom a body of rules was compiled in 1780,1 relating chiefly to matters of deportment, which stood substantially unchanged until 1796-97, when the trustees for the first time exercised their authority in the enactment of a new and well-digested code worthy of the name. The only hope which the College now had of permanent support lay in its landed endowment; but large sales of it at that early day and at prices merely nominal, in order to meet current expenses, threatened to bring these resources to a speedy end. Exclusive of Landaff, it had been originally estimated at fifteen thousand acres. Some of it had been lost by defective titles, and some by accumulation of taxes.2 The question of taxation having been brought to the attention of the New Hampshire Legislature, a measure of protection was secured. "In the House of Representatives, Nov. 9, 1780: Voted that Mr. Livermore, Doct. Dearborn, & Mr. Giles, with such as the Honble Board shall join, be a committee to consider of what is requisite to be done concerning the lands which were granted and conveyed for the use of Dartmouth College, and report thereon. . . . In council the same day read & concurred, & Mr. Thornton & Mr. Thompson joined. . . . ... 1 This early code has but recently come to light from an attic in Massachusetts. It affords some curious hints of the manners of the times. The students, for example, were required to uncover their heads at the distance of four rods from a professor, and six rods from the President, "also when they enter his dooryard (when the weather don't render it inconvenient, and when their hands are not necessarily otherwise employed), and never to speak of him or to him but in a manner savoring of deference and respect," etc. Freshmen were moreover required "to have their heads uncovered when in the College or in the hall, and when they speak to Seniors;" and the Seniors themselves were enjoined "to inspect the manners of the Freshmen, especially to a due observance of these rules." ... 2 In 1779, 140 acres of divided land and the undivided rights of three original proprietors in Hartford, Vt., were sold by the trustees to Col. Joseph Marsh for £44 paid in wheat at 55. a bushel, and beef at 20s. a hundredweight. He also had a deed of the undivided land of another right in consideration of having advanced £45 Continental money to pay proprietary taxes for the College in Hartford and Lebanon. "The committee report that no land belonging to the College be sold for taxes, provided the Trustees of said College give notice seasonably to the selectmen of each town respectively, what lands they have in such town, & that the taxes for the present should be charged to the State. . . . Which report being read and considered [in the House, Nov. 10, 1780], Voted and resolved that the same be rec1 & accepted, and that all persons concerned take notice & govern themselves accordingly. . . . [In the council, Saturday, Nov. 11, 1780]. Vote to exempt the lands appropriated to the use of Dartmouth College from paying taxes, brought up, read, and concurred.”1 Under this vote total exemption for all lands owned by the College was for a long time claimed even in favor of tenants for years. But in 1839 the Supreme Court, upon a litigation about taxes in Lebanon, decided that the resolution was temporary in its character, and not a permanent exemption from taxation, and that the subsequent adoption of the constitution and passage of general laws for the assessment and collection of taxes terminated the operation of it.2 The obtaining of additional funds now became a matter of the first importance.3 At the meeting in 1780, Dr. Whitaker was requested to devote a portion of his time to soliciting once more for the College. In December, 1781, President Wheelock visited Philadelphia and made a final but unsuccessful attempt to obtain further appropriations from the Continental Congress.* At the Commencement in 1782, Dr. Whitaker was present, and by invitation of the board sat with them as a counsellor. Two hundred acres of land in Landaff were given him in reward for his past services, and he was appointed to appear in behalf of the trustees before the Council of Safety in regard to the difficulties in that town. It being determined to solicit donations from France, Holland, and other parts of Europe, President Wheelock, with Messrs. Whitaker and Huntington, were nominated for the mission, with one or more assistants. So desirous were the trustees that 1 The next year (1781), upon the secession of the western towns to Vermont, an unsuccessful attempt was made (doubtless for political reasons) to repeal this exemption, and again in 1786. 2 Brewster vs. Hough, 10 N. H. Reports, 138. 8 The only donation of which we have any record at this period was £125 Continental currency (about £6 6s. silver) from Col. John Chandler. From 1780 to 1782 about £240 were collected in money and clothing at Salem, Beverly, Ipswich, and Newbury, and from Philadelphia and New Jersey. N. H. State Papers, x. 452. Dr. Whitaker should be of the party that they offered, besides his own expenses, to pay for the support of his family at home during his absence, and of his son Nathaniel in Europe. He did not, however, consent, and President Wheelock, with his brother James, undertook the mission alone. £200 sterling were borrowed by the trustees with which to defray their expenses. Preparatory to this, the Faculty was reorganized on a permanent basis. The "executive authority" of the College consisted at first of Dr. Wheelock alone, with a tutor whose function it was (in the language of the charter) "to assist the President in the education and government of the students." Dr. Wheelock himself sustained, to the end of his life, the united relations of president, treasurer, professor of divinity, and pastor of the College church. The first tutor was Bezaleel Woodward. John Wheelock was added in 1771, Sylvanus Ripley in 1772, and John Smith in 1774. In the spring of 1777 young Wheelock left for the army, and in the following summer Smith, expecting the College to suspend for fear of Indian attacks, gave up his place and took charge of a church at West Hartford, Conn.; but in November, owing no doubt to Wheelock's failing health and Mr. Woodward's devotion to politics, he was recalled and created the first "professor," under a written contract, ratified in 1778 by the board of trust, at a stipulated annual salary of £100, of which he the first year relinquished half on account of the embarrassments of the College. His department covered the "Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and other learned languages," in all of which he had shown a remarkable aptitude. In 1782 the other tutors were also raised to the grade of professor. Mr. Woodward, abandoning politics, "resumed the exercise of his office as tutor," in addition to the professorship of mathematics and philosophy, Mr. Ripley became professor of divinity, and the President professor of history. The President sailed with his companion in October, 1782. They were provided with ample credentials from the President of the State and the majority of the members of the General Assembly; from Washington and other prominent generals, and from the governors of several States; from the French minister and the United States Secretary of State, and from other persons of consequence. After spending some weeks in France, they proceeded, with friendly letters from the American |