Coming a few years later to this country, he became a useful and an honored citizen of the then new, but now old, historic town of Dedham, from which place he removed to Medfield, being styled "founder" of that town, where he remained till his death. He devoted his time largely to teaching, although, having been educated for the ministry, he rendered valuable service to the infant community as an occasional preacher. His name is also conspicuous among the magistrates and legislators of that period.[1] [1] His daughter Rebecca married John Craft, whose birth is the earliest on record among the pioneer settlers at Roxbury. Some of his descendants (by another marriage) are conspicuous in history. Medfield records connect the names of Fuller, Chenery, and Morse with the Wheelock family. In the character of his son, Eleazar Wheelock, of Mendon, we are told there was a union of "the Christian and the soldier." Having command of a corps of cavalry, he was "very successful in repelling the irruptions of the Indians," although he treated them with "great kindness," in times of peace. From him, his grandson and namesake received "a handsome legacy for defraying the expenses of his public education," and from him, too, he doubtless acquired, in some measure, that peculiar interest in the Indian race which so largely moulded his character and guided the labors of his life. Near the time of Ralph Wheelock's arrival in America, were two other arrivals worthy of notice: that of Thomas Hooker, at Cambridge, "the one rich pearl with which Europe more than repaid America for the treasures from her coasts," and that of the widowed Margaret Huntington, at Roxbury, of which there is still a well-preserved record, in the handwriting of John Eliot. The guiding and controlling influence of Hooker's masterly mind upon all, whether laymen or divines, with whom he came in contact, must be apparent to those who are familiar with the biography of one, to whom the learned and religious institutions of New England are more indebted, perhaps, than to any other single person. Hooker's settlement at Hartford is fitly styled "the founding of Connecticut." When a little later the family of Margaret Huntington settled at Saybrook, their youthful pastor, who was just gathering a church, was James Fitch, a worthy pupil of Thomas Hooker. Not satisfied with their location, pastor and people sought an inland home, and in 1660 laid the foundations of what is now the large and flourishing town of Norwich. From this time Huntington and Fitch are honored names in the history of Connecticut.