Ancient Egyptian Clinriot-wheel.
WHEELER
9V8
WHELAN
Wheeler, Daniel, a distingiiishccl member of the Society of Frieiuls, was born in London. England, Nov. 27, 1771. Early in life he served in both tlie navy and the army. Having become a Christian, when not far from twenty-tive years of age, he joined the Society of Friends. Some years after this, he abandoned a very lucrative part of the business in which he was engaged, that lie might devote himself to the work to which, by the Spirit of God, he believed himself called. He be- came an accredited minister of the Society of Friends in 181G. In 1817 the emperor of Kussia, in order to carry out a cherished iilan for draining and cultivating the marshes surrounding St. Petersburg, secured the services of Mr. Wheeler as manager of the enterprise. While faithfully discharging his duties in the secular business to which he had been called, he was also faithful to his higher Master, and preached the Gospel with all sim- plicity and fidelity, not only to the humble and lowly, but also to the higher in authority in Russia. He re- mained in St. Petersburg until 1832, when he felt im- pressed that it was his duty to go as a missionary among the islands of the Pacific, where a rich blessing attend- ed his labors. After several years spent in missionary work in the Pacific, he returned to England. Here he remained until 1838, when he came to the United States, where he continued nine months, rendering such service as he could to the cause of Christ, and then went back once more to his native land. During a second voyage to the United States he contracted a disease which proved fatal; and he died soon after landing at New York, Feb. 6, 1840. See J/ewoiV (Phila. 1870). (J. C. S.)
"Wheeler (or Wheler), :Sir George, D.D., an English clergyman and traveller, was born at Breda, Holland, of English parentage, in 1650. He removed to Kent, England, in childhood; was educated at Lincoln College, Oxford ; travelled on the Continent and in the East with Dr. James Spon, of Lyons, in 1675-76; pre- sented a collection of MSS. to the University of Oxford ; received the honorary degree of A.M. I'rom Oxford University; was knighted and ordained in 1683; and, having taken orders, was collated by bishop Crewe to the second prebend in the Cathedral of Durham in 1084. In 1685 he was presented to the vicarage of Basingstoke, Hants ; in 1702 was created D.D. by di- ploma from Oxford, and in the following year received the curacy of Whitworth. In 1706 he was collated to the rectory of Winston, and in 1709 to that of Houghton- le-Spring, which he retained until his decease, Jan. 15, 1724. Dr.Wheeler was the author of, A Jouniey to Greece (1082): — An Account of the Churches or Places of As- sembly of the Primitice Christians (1689): — and The Protestant Monastery ; or, Christian (Kconomics (1698). He was a man of vast research and ability, and a devoted minister and parent. See Church of England Maga- zine, viii, 332.
"Wheeler, John, D.D., a Congregational minister, was born at (irafton, Vt., March 11, 1798. He gradu- ated at Dartmouth College in 1816, and at Andover Theological Seminary in 1819. In 1821 he was ordain- ed over the ChurcUat Windsor, Vt., where he took high rank as a pulpit orator. At the age of twenty-six he declined the presidency of the University of Vermont; but nine years after, upon the resignation of president Marsh, he accepted the honor. From this time his best energies were devoted to the university. He raised up friends for it, carried it through seasons of trial, and ele- vated the standard of scholarship. He resigned in 1848, and died at Burlington, April 16, 1862. Dr. Wheeler published several Sermons and Discourses, especially that before the Porter Hhetorical Society of Andover Tiieological Seminary in 1834. See Cong. Quar. 1862, p. 307.
"Wheelock, Eleazer, D.D., a Congregational min- ister, was born at Windham. Conn., in May, 1711, and graduated from Yale College in 1733. In Jlarch, 1735, he was ordained minister of the Second Church in Leb-
anon, called " Lebanon Crank," now Columbia. In the great Whitcfieldian revival Mr. AVMieelock engaged with great /.cal and energy. After the religious excitement had subsideti, he added to his labors as a minister the duties of a teacher. Samson Occum, a Mohegan Indian, who afterwards became a distinguished preacher, was a pupil in his school in 1743. He soon formed the ])lan of an Indian Missionary School, and several Indian boys entered it, chietly maintained by subscriptions from the legislatures of Connecticut and Massachusetts. The in- stitution received the name of Moor's Indian Charity School, Joshua Moor having made a donation of a house and two acres of land about the year 1754. INIr. Occam and Ilev. Nathaniel Whitaker solicited funds for the school in Great Britain in 1760, the amount realized being £7000 in England, and more than £2000 in Scot- land. After conducting this school in Lebanon over fourteen years, he determined to transfer it to New Hampshire, and a charter was obtained for a college, with about 40,000 acres of land, as an endowment from governor Wentworth and others. Thus originated at Hanover, N. H., Dartmouth College; but Moor's school was maintained there for a long time as a separate in- stitution. In August, 1770, Dr. Wheelock went to Han- over, built a log cabin in what was then a wilderness, and put up his school-building, eighty feet long and two stories in height. Among the first graduates was his son John, who succeeded to the presidency of the col- lege. As a teacher Dr. Wheelock was industrious and successful. He died April 24, 1779. Dr. Wheelock pub- lished, iVa?T«/ii'e of the Indian Charity School at Leb- anon (1702) : — Narratives, in several numbers, from 1703 to 1771: — Continuation of the Narrative, to which is Added an Abstract of a Mission to the Delaware In- dians M^est of the Ohio (1773) : — .4 Seiinon on Liberty of Conscience, or No King but Christ in the Chuixh (1775) : — and an occasional Sermon. His Memoirs, by Drs. IMcClure and Parish, were published in 1811. See Sprague, A nnals of the A nier. Pulpit, i, 397.