Ralph Wheelock

Ralph Wheelock (1600–1683) was an English Puritan minister, American colonial public official, and educator.

[5] The family sailed to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636 (O.S), 6 years after the settlement of Boston, and at the peak of the "Great Migration".

), which Wheelock had a major role in establishing, children Benjamin, Samuel, Record, and Experience were born.

Ralph Wheelock joined the dissenting religious movement known as Puritanism while attending Clare College.

[7] His ordination comes almost four months before the signing of the Cambridge Agreement, where 12 men agreed to the sale of Massachusetts Bay Company shares to those interested in emigrating to the new world.

It is probable that Wheelock served clerical duties at the parish in Eccles where his children Gershom and Rebecca were baptized.

[7] Wheelock participated in a plan to create a new settlement further up the Charles River from Watertown, Massachusetts, to be called Contentment (later renamed Dedham).

Three years later, in 1647, the General Court decreed that every town with 50 or more families must build a school supported by public taxes.

Wheelock was appointed leader of this effort, and in 1649 he and six others were given the duties of erecting and governing a new village, to be called New Dedham, later renamed Medfield.

The Agreement stated that the signatories were to abide by the town ordinances and laws, maintain orderly conduct, and resolve differences between themselves peaceably.

Ralph Wheelock played an active and important role in the settling of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Succeeding generations would push farther west, settling the frontiers in New York, Michigan, Illinois, Nova Scotia, and Texas, establishing impressive credentials as teachers, writers, soldiers, founders of towns, and creators of business.