Dennison Wheelock

Brothers Dennison and James Wheelock served as bandmasters, Carlisle Indian School, Carlisle, PA, c.1885

Dennison Wheelock was born June 14, 1871, in the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, second child of James A. Wheelock and Sophia Doxtator.[3] He had an older brother Charles and a total of eight other brothers and sisters, and half-siblings. Dennison grew up in the 1870s and early 1880s in a poor Oneida farm community, which was faced with increasing economic pressures to harvest its timber and a federal push for the allotment of tribal lands to individual households. The Nation struggled with high alcohol consumption and tribal infighting.[4] Dennison took up the cornet after hearing his older brother, Charles, playing it. He was impressed by a visiting Tuscarora musician, who taught the youth music reading and simple composition for several months. In 1879, Seneca and Tuscarora musicians won medals of excellence at state fairs.[5] Dennison also heard the popular band music of John Philip Sousa at Wisconsin fairs. Locally, the Oneida Union Band and the Oneida National Band were prominent in community events and throughout the Midwest.[4]

The collaborative effort between Dickinson College and Carlisle Indian School lasted almost four decades, from the opening day to the closing of the school. Old West, Dickinson College, 1810

Dickinson College provided Carlisle Indian School students with access to preparatory and college-level education, and Dickinson professors served as chaplains and special faculty to the Indian School.

For more than 100 years, numerous Iroquois children, including Oneida, had been sent away from home to Christian schools for education. It was a tradition Wheelock likely heard about. Moor's Indian Charity School, now Dartmouth College, was founded in 1755 by Eleazar Wheelock, a Puritan minister. He established the school to train Native Americans as missionaries. Dennison's surname was adopted by an Oneida ancestor as a tribute to Wheelock.[6]Hamilton-Oneida Academy, now Hamilton College, was a seminary founded in 1793 by Presbyterian Samuel Kirkland as part of his missionary work with the Oneida in New York State, their traditional territory.[6]

The Oneida people from Wisconsin and New York constituted one of the largest Indian nation's contingents at Carlisle Indian School. Only the Lakota, Chippewa and Seneca had more students enrolled. Between 1885 and 1917, more than 500 Oneida students attended Carlisle.[6]

In January 1884 at age 13, Wheelock wrote to Captain Richard Henry Pratt, Superintendent of the Carlisle Indian School, referring to his "limited musical education" and his musical awakening.[5] In 1885, Wheelock enrolled in the Carlisle Indian School to study under Pratt.[5] Dennison excelled in the classroom, and as a champion debater; he also was a fine tenor in the choir and cornetist extraordinaire in the band. In June 1890, Dennison graduated from Carlisle.

He returned to Oneida, Wisconsin, where he started teaching and was appointed as a justice of the peace. But within a year, Wheelock returned to Carlisle. With Pratt's recommendation, he enrolled in the nearby Dickinson Preparatory School. Dickinson College provided Carlisle Indian students with access to college-level education through the Dickinson Preparatory School ("Conway Hall").[7] Only a select few of Carlisle students were recommended to this institution. Dennison attended Dickinson Preparatory school from 1891 to 1892.[8][9]

In 1892, Pratt appointed Wheelock as assistant clerk, working directly for him at the School. Later that year, Pratt appointed the young man as bandmaster, a position he would hold for more than eight years, until 1900.

During the Progressive Era, from the late 19th century until the onset of World War I, Native American performers were major draws and money-makers. Millions of visitors at world fairs, exhibitions, and parades throughout the United States and Europe saw Native Americans portrayed as the vanishing race, exotic peoples, and objects of modern comparative anthropology.[10] Reformers and Progressives fought a war of words and images against the popular Wild West shows at world fairs, expositions and parades. They opposed theatrical portrayals of Wild Westers as vulgar heathen stereotypes. In contrast, Carlisle students were portrayed as a new generation of Native American leadership embracing civilization, education and industry.

Music was an important part of the Carlisle curriculum. Every student took music classes, and many received private instruction. Captain Pratt had three goals for the Carlisle musical program: to acculturate Indian school children to majority European-American culture; to use music to promote discipline, with emphasis on the drills of the popular marching bands; and to generate favorable public attention, in order to win continued political and philanthropic support and financing for the school.[11]

Development of the music program at Carlisle was supported largely by private philanthropy, rather than federal funds.[12] Around 1879, a visiting philanthropist from Boston reported hearing "tom-toms" and Indian singing in the dormitories. Pratt preferred that the "tom-toms" stopped, but said,

It wouldn't be fair to do unless I can give them something else as good, or better, on the same line. If you will give me a set of brass instruments, I will give them to the "tom-tom boys" and they can toot on them, and this will stop the "tom-tom."[12]

Pratt soon received a set of musical instruments: cornets, clarinets, and pianos from Boston.

While classical European music was emphasized at Carlisle, the students also sang and drummed traditional tribal music in their dormitories. They played samples of such music at assembly and local community programs. Later, Wheelock featured American Indian music with classical European music in his opera, Aboriginal Suite.[13]

Dennison Wheelock's Bandstand, Carlisle Indian School, Carlisle, PA, 1901

The Carlisle Indian Band performed at world fairs, expositions and every at national presidential inaugural celebration until the school closed. Carlisle, PA, 1915

Carlisle Indian Students at the Centennial of the Constitution Parade, Philadelphia, PA, 1887

The Carlisle Indian Band earned an international reputation. Carlisle Indian School Band and Battalion. Carlisle, PA, c. 1911

Wheelock drew 70,000 people to a concert at Willow Grove Park, Pennsylvania, and was awarded a gold medal and a silver cup for his brilliant conducting.

First Inaugural Parade of Theodore Roosevelt, March 4, 1905. President Roosevelt waved his hat and members of the President's box rose to their feet to see the six famous Native American chiefs in full regalia on horseback, followed by the 46-piece Carlisle Indian School Band and a brigade of 350 Carlisle Cadets.

Pratt established the Carlisle Indian School band in 1880. By the time Wheelock entered the school in the mid-1880s, musical programs were a common feature of the school. Band members mastered Greig, Mozart, Rossini, Schubert and Wagner. They frequently performed at school assemblies, holiday festivities and at the Carlisle Opera House, delighting the students, teachers and administrators at the school and gaining favorable attention among the local white townspeople.[8] In 1892, Dennison was appointed bandmaster of the Carlisle Indian Band, a position he would hold for over eight years, until 1900. Wheelock was the first American Indian bandmaster at Carlisle. After his tenure, his brother James took up the baton.[14] Under the leadership of Dennison Wheelock and James Wheelock, the Carlisle Indian Band earned an international reputation of musical excellence.[15] The Carlisle Indian Band performed at world fairs, expositions, concert venues and at every national presidential inaugural celebration until the school closed. Taking over the reins of the Carlisle Indian School Band, he recruited new members. Dennison continued to perform at as a solo cornetist and his younger brother James, a student at the school, became a fixture on the "E-Clarinet. " [8] Wheelock's commitment to music extended beyond the classroom and the bandstand the Carlisle. Throughout the 1890s, he was also composing songs, popular "fluff", band music, as well as the symphony, which he finally completed in 1900.[16]

By 1894, the band and the Carlisle Women's Choir, performed throughout the East. On April 15, 1894, The New York Times did a feature on Wheelock with his portrait and band, reviewing their performance at the city's Lenox Lyceum. The review noted "few metropolitan bands can boast of greater care and accuracy in the execution of their music." "Among other offerings, the band played Mozart and Wagner as well as two selections compose by Wheelock himself: "The Carlisle Indian School March" and a piece entitled "American Medley." "The concert's patrons read as a "Who's Who" of New York's elite families, including Mrs. J. Pierpont Morgan, Mrs. Russell Sage, Mrs. James Harriman and Mrs. Elihu Root.[16]

Louise LaChapelle (Wheelock), a Chippewa from the White Earth Reservation in northwestern Minnesota, arrived as a student at Carlisle two years earlier than Dennison. They met, courted, married and had four children. Richard Edmund Wheelock,[17] Paul Wheelock,[18] Leeland Lloyd Wheelock [19] and Louise Frances Wheelock.[20] Their first two children were born in Carlisle.

Captain Pratt was Dennison's mentor and school father, and Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was Dennison's second-home. Wheelock corresponded with Pratt for over 35 years and confided in each other throughout their lives. Wheelock had affection for Pratt, his wife and Carlisle. Wheelock shared Pratt's views. Both saw federal Indian boarding schools as a temporary educational formula to "uplift" the Indians, and called for the abolishment of Indian reservations and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They focused upon the release of Indians from federal control, full citizenship, equal opportunity and education in public schools. Wheelock and Pratt had little faith in the efficacy of the Society of American Indians to make real changes, since they believed that the organization had too many BIA bureaucrats, naïve reformers from the Indian Rights Association another "paper shooters."[21] From 1921 to 1922, Captain Pratt lobbied President Warren G. Harding to nominate Wheelock to be Commissioner of Indian affairs.[22]

Chief James Wheelock's Band

Under the leadership of Dennison Wheelock and James Wheelock, the Carlisle Indian Band earned an international reputation of musical excellence.[23] James Riley Wheelock was a younger brother of bandmaster Dennison Wheelock and graduated from Carlisle in 1896.[24] Like Dennis, James attended the prestigious Dickinson College Preparatory School after completing his Carlisle studies.[25] When Dennison resigned as Bandmaster in 1900, James succeeded him. In 1903, James studied music and his specialty, clarinet, in Leipzig, Germany.[26]

In 1909, James clashed with Superintendent Moses Friedman, Pratt's successor. Wheelock recruited Carlisle students to tour with his professional band during the summer, believing the experience would fit into the parameters of Carlisle's outing program. Superintendent Friedman refused, but several boys from the band attempted join Wheelock's band and had their trunks taken to the train depot. Friedman discovered the plan and the boys were locked in the guardhouse as punishment for their actions. The rest of the Carlisle Band was so resentful at these measures, they refused to perform during that evening's "salute to the flag, " a daily ritual at Carlisle. James was infuriated by Friedman's actions and charged in newspapers that the Superintendent was jealous of his band's success, was the cause of disciplinary problems at the school and that the students were illegally held in a "dungeon." Friedman responded that he had refused permission because in the past, "students indulged in the kind of dissipation and debauchery during the summer which taints and brings about an unhealthy condition in the fall when they return to school." The story made local headlines and embarrassed both Carlisle and the Office of Indian Affairs. After several weeks and an official investigation, the matter was dropped. The students who forged resistance through the flag controversy rebelled because of their intense desire to perform beyond the campus.[27]

In 1914, the Harrisburg Telegraph reported that James Riley Wheelock, director of the Enola Band, was performing in clarinet solos and was one of the best clarinet players in Pennsylvania.[28] During World War I, Wheelock was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, where he conducted a black regimental band. After the war, he conducted the famous U.S. Indian Band and others well into the 1920s.[29]

The Wheelocks were likely the first family of Carlisle Indian School, because there were so many of them, and they were mentioned prominently in Carlisle publications.[30] The Oneida people from Wisconsin and New York was one of the largest contingents of Indians at Carlisle, and only the Lakota, Chippewas and Senecas had more students. Between 1885 and 1917, over five hundred Oneida students attended Carlisle.[6] Of Wheelock's nine brothers, half-brothers, sisters and half sisters, only two-his oldest brother Charles, who also played the cornet, and his youngest half-brother, Harrison did not attend. In addition, several of his first and second cousins were enrolled at the school.[31] Dennison's younger brothers Hugh Wheelock and Joel Wheelock, who attended Carlisle, were also accomplished musicians, and later directed their own all-Indian bands. Sister Ida Wheelock was active in school organizations such as the Susan Longstreth Literary Society, and Martin Frederick Wheelock, a cousin of Dennison, played American football for the Carlisle Indians from 1894 to 1902.[32]

In August 1914, Dennison wrote Oscar Lipps, Acting Superintendent at Carlisle: "My sister, Martha Wheelock, aged twenty years, whose term expired at Flandreau, South Dakota last June, and is now with me in West De Pere, desires to be admitted to the Carlisle Indian School as a pupil. I am very anxious that she shall go if possible. She is in eighth grade. My son, Edmund is also very anxious to have the benefit of a diploma from Carlisle on account of the prestige it carries with it throughout the West." Edmund, who was born in at the Carlisle Indian School in 1896, had been attending public school in Wisconsin and doing well, but Dennison was concerned about the environment. "Unfortunately, however, De Pere is a city of less than five thousand inhabitants, yet has in the neighborhood of twenty-two, or twenty-four saloons, and on account of what is falsely termed liberal sentiment, the saloon keepers do not hold strictly to the law of the land, and as a result we see young boys very frequently under the influence of liquor." Within a month, both Edmund and Martha were attending Carlisle and active in school life and literary societies.[33]

The first conference of the Society of American Indians, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, 1911

Wheelock was among 50 founders of the Society of American Indians, the first national American Indian rights organization developed and run by American Indians.

Wheelock was among the 50 founders in 1911 of the Society of American Indians (1911-1923), the first national American Indian rights organization developed and run by American Indians. The Society pioneered 20th-century Pan-Indianism, the philosophy and movement promoting unity among American Indians regardless of tribal affiliation. The Society was a forum for a new generation of American Indian leaders known as Red Progressives: they were mostly prominent professionals from the fields of medicine, nursing, law, government, education, anthropology, ethnology and ministry. They shared an enthusiasm and faith in the inevitability of progress through education and governmental action. The Society met at academic institutions, maintained a Washington headquarters, conducted annual conferences, and published a quarterly journal of literature by American Indian authors. The Society promoted an "American Indian Day", and led the fight for Indians to have United States citizenship. It lobbied to have U.S. Court of Claims available to hear cases of all tribes and bands in United States.[43]

The Society of American Indians was the forerunner of modern organizations such as the National Congress of American Indians. It anticipated important Indian reforms: a major reorganization of the Indian school system in the late 1920s, the codification of Indian law in the 1930s, and the opening of the U.S. Court of Claims to all Indian nations in the 1940s.[43]

Wheelock represented Native American tribal nations before the US Court of Claims and the US Supreme Court.

In 1910, Wheelock decided to go into law. He took up the study of law by returning to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he had a wide professional network. He "reading the law" as an apprentice at the office of John Miller, head of the Cumberland County Bar Association.[46] He served as a legal apprentice to Miller.

In 1911, after completing his training, Wheelock returned to Wisconsin, and completed requirements to be admitted to the Bar. He established his residence and practice in De Pere, near the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. Wheelock became one of the most successful attorneys in Brown and Outagamie counties. He represented both Indian and non-Indian clients, although in this period, anti-Indian sentiments were rising in North Central Wisconsin. In 1915, Dennison also led the Green Bay Concert Band, which was composed largely of non-Indian musicians.[47]

During the next decade, Wheelock expanded his practice well beyond Wisconsin. By 1923, he was specializing in representing tribal nations, ranging across the country from those in Washington State to New York, including the Nisqually, Menominee, Mohawk, and Stockbridge-Munsee Band. As he was increasingly representing these nations in claims and actions related to the federal government, he moved his law practice to Washington, D.C. There he argued appellate cases before the US Supreme Court and the US Court of Claims.[48]

In 1921, Wheelock served as general manager and bandmaster of the Oneida Indian Centennial Celebration, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the tribe's migration to Wisconsin. His band performed Bizet's Carmen and Western classics. The American Indian nations of Wisconsin set up a traditional-style village, where they sold traditional baskets and other crafts, as well as Indian foods. A special grandstand was used for Indians to perform and celebrate Menominee and Oneida music and dancing.[49]

Wheelock continued his practice in Washington, DC until his death on March 10, 1927, at the age of 56.[50] He was buried in a Masonic funeral at Woodlawn Cemetery, Brown County, Wisconsin.[51] His wife Louise LaChapelle Wheelock died on January 16, 1931. She was buried next to him.

Dennison Wheelock's Bandstand, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania

• In 1980, Dennison Wheelock's Bandstand was reconstructed on the site of the original at the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania.[52] The Carlisle Barracks complex was designated a National Historic Landmark (NHL) in 1961 because of its significant history and many uses.
• On August 14, 2003, the Green Bay Concert Band played Wheelock's Aboriginal Suite at the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. The symphony had not been performed in more than 75 years.[53][54]

U.S. Indian Band serenades U.S. Vice President Charles Curtis, Washington, D.C., 1929

Sousa on the Rez: Marching to the Beat of a Different Drum is a half-hour documentary that explores the vibrant but little known tradition of brass band music in Indian country. The phrase "Native American music" may not suggest tubas and trumpets to many outsiders but, popularized by the Wheelock brothers, march music by composers such as John Philip Sousa has been adopted and played by Native American cultures for more than a century.[55]

• Troutman, John William, "Indian Blues: American Indians and the Politics of Music 1879–1934", University of Oklahoma Press, 2009.

• Band and Battalion of the U.S. Indian School at IMDb Band and Battalion of the U.S. Indian School, (1901), a silent film documentary, was made by American Mutoscope and Biograph Company at the Carlisle Indian School. The cinematographer Arthur Marvin features a mass-band parade drill, led by the renowned Carlisle Band.[1]
• Carlisle Indian School March on YouTube
• Dennison Wheelock at Find a Grave