WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1843
414
Within the last few days, I have received reports from the Com- missioners which have gone to the Comanches, under date of the 2nd and 11th June. They are both favorable, and the most gratifying disposition i.s evinced by the various tribes met with to consumate a general and permanent peace. A-cah-quash, the Waco chief, has proved himself a true and efficient friend and will no doubt do much to aid the commissioners in their object. Sam Houston Execi,tive Record Book, No. 40, p. 258, Texas State Library. Eleazer Louis Ripley Wheelock (March 31, 1793-May 14, 1747) was born at Hanover, Grafton County, Connecticut, and was the grandson of the Eleazer Wheelock who founded Dartmouth College. E. L. R. Wheelock, as he signed his name to all important documents, was well educated. After finishing his academic course he had training at the West Point Military Academy. He entered the United States army and was assigned to his first commission at Augusta, Georgia. There, May 22, 1818, he married Mary Prickett, of St. Clair County, Georgia. In 1822, he was stationed at Fort Smith, Arkansas; but soon after taking that position he resigned from the army to go to Ohio to enter the mercantile business. After staying in Ohio a short time he moved to Edwardsville, Illinois, and finally to ·Quincy, Illinois. He did not live in Quincy longer than three or four years, for during the 20's he visited Texas several times and "had caught the Texas fever." He was in Texas in 1824, bought land, and contemplated becoming one of DeWitt's first settlers, but his business interests in Illinois prevented the removal of his family until 1833. 1 E.L.R. Wheelock Pave1·s, The University of Texas Library. Arriving in Texas in 1833, he took up a headright league of land on the Brazos, and settled at old Independence. While he was improving his headright, he was prospecting for additional grants, and by the end of 1834, he moved up the Brazos to newly purchased lands, and settled the village of Wheelock. In 1835, he immediately joined the Texas army upon the outbreak of the revolution, and served throughout the war. In .Tune, 1836, he organized a company of Texas Rangers, and from that time until after annexation in 1845, he was either the advisor, or the leader, of all the expeditions that went out from Robertson and Milam counties against the Indians. In Texas, Wheelock's business interests were va1·ied and rather extensive; he kept records with somewhat methodical care. and left many valuable business documents, also a great number of letters from prominent Texans of his period-from such men as Houston, Rusk, Anson Jones, Felix Huston, and others. While on a business trip to Hanover, New Hampshire, he died suddenly of apoplexy, leaving a widow and five adult children: George Ripley, Annette Woodward (Mrs. Killough), William Billman, David Prickett, and Thomas Ford, all of whom were born in Illinois. See the Wheelock Papers, The University of Texas Library. See also, William C. Binkley (ed.), Official Correspondence of the Texan Revolution, II, 879, 882, 887, 892-893, 894.
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