Wheelock Academy

About this property

Wheelock Academy was the model academy for the Five Civilized Tribes' academies. It was started as a missionary school for Choctaw girls, and is still owned by the Choctaw nation. The school closed in 1955 and the only remaining Choctaw school, Jones Academy, became coeducational. The site is located 3 miles (4.8 km) east of Millerton in McCurtain County, Oklahoma. It is administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In 1832 the Academy was initiated by Alfred Wright, a physician and Presbyterian missionary who co-founded the nearby Wheelock Church. He and his wife, Harriet Wright, had travelled with the Choctaw tribe when they were expelled from their previous homeland in the southeastern United States and forced to emigrate to Indian Territory. He named the school after Eleazar Wheelock, founder of Moor's Indian School, later known as Dartmouth College. Within a year, the Superintendent of the Choctaw Agency reported that Wheelock Academy had become a model for Indian education. In 1839, Wright expanded the school by building a large dormitory to accommodate boarding students. The institution he founded became the first Choctaw national academy in 1842. Alfred died March 31, 1853. Reverend John Edwards was asked to replace him as the head of the school. Harriet left the mission within a year because of ill health. She died in Florida in 1863. Wheelock Academy was closed during the Civil War (1861 - 1865). The American Board of Missions had ordered Rev. Edwards to close the school and the church and return to the North. Libby's wife had been a student at Wheelock before the war. The couple maintained the buildings and continued to operate the facility as a day school, until a fire in 1869 destroyed many of the buildings. Classes resumed in some of the less damaged buildings. The Choctaw Nation rebuilt the facility in 1880 - 1884, with assistance from the Southern Presbyterian Church. Although the Presbyterian Home Missions Board and the Federal Government became involved in administering the school, it remained owned and financially supported by the Choctaw Nation. The Choctaw Council created a National School Board in 1882. The board decided to rebuild the damaged and destroyed buildings and operate Wheelock as a boarding school for girls. John Edwards returned to teach at an academy near Boggy Depot, since his wife had died in 1881 in California. Edwards married a Wheelock teacher, Constance Hunter. The National School Board asked him to return to Wheelock as superintendent in 1884. Instead, he asked them to find another superintendent because he was in poor health. He remained as a mentor until the end of the 1886-87 school year.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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