John Hall Wheelock

John Hall Wheelock (September 9, 1886 – March 22, 1978) was an American poet. He was a descendant of Eleazar Wheelock, founder of Dartmouth College. The son of William Efner Wheelock and Emily Charlotte Hall, John Hall Wheelock was born in Far Rockaway, New York, and brought up in the neighborhood now occupied by Rockefeller Center. He summered in a family home on Long Island's South Fork, which provided inspiration for much of his work. Wheelock's parents encouraged the reading and memorization of poetry, and told of the time when they had seen the great poet Walt Whitman, when John was a baby. My father held me up on a ferryboat...and said: 'Do you see that man?' He turned my head... toward Whitman, who was standing in the bow of the boat, and he said, 'That is the great poet, Walt Whitman.' Apparently—as my father described it—I refused to look at him, and kept turning my head the other way. I have no memory of this great occasion, not being then equipped to receive the spirit of Walt Whitman, although I suppose for a moment his image was in my eyes.