The poem “Eleazar Wheelock,” about the founder of Dartmouth College, was written by the alumnus and poet Richard Hovey (1864–1900). As a song, which goes to the tune of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” it is not that memorable nor remembered. The same goes for Hovey and his poetry. One is similarly hard-pressed to find much information on the magazine illustrator Walter Beach Humphrey (1892–1966), another Dartmouth alumnus who painted a series of murals in the late 1930s depicting Wheelock among a group of Indians.

The murals originally appeared in the college’s Thayer Dining Hall, but are now covered up. Wheelock, a Puritan, founded Dartmouth in 1789 as a place to educate Native Americans.In these murals, we see Wheelock bringing 500 gallons of rum up to New Hampshire and serving it to American Indians, taking their land in exchange for the booze. Everyone appears to be enjoying the rum, including the frequently topless Native American women in their pin-up poses. What fun. But by the early 1970s, the culture had changed. By then, Dartmouth had initiated a Native American Studies program, and the