The Indian population of the southeastern corner of Connecticut with such accord received the gospel at the hands of the evangelists that heathenism seemed extinct among them.[179:2] Among the first trophies of the revival at Norwich was a Mohegan boy named Samson Occum.

Wheelock, pastor at Lebanon, one of the most ardent of the revival preachers, took him into his family as a student.

This was the beginning of that school for the training of Indian preachers which, endowed in part with funds gathered by Occum in England, grew at last into Dartmouth College.

The choicest spiritual gifts at the disposal of the church were freely spent on the missions.

Whitefield visited the school and the field, and sped Kirkland on his way to the Oneidas.