In the early years of Wheaton College, one could say in the early decades, as well, the college relied heavily upon the enrollment of local students. Though it broadly drew students from the region, it was the Wheaton community that served as the “bread and butter” of its tuition dollars.

In 1860 the transition of leadership from Lucius Matlack to Jonathan Blanchard, from the full control of Wesleyan Methodists to the inclusion of Congregationalists, brought new energy and resources. It also brought a different perspective. For over one hundred years a member of the Wheaton College community could not be a member of a secret oath-bound society. Of any sort. The Illinois Institute and, afterward, Wheaton College were founded on several principles: abolition, temperance and anti-secretism. It was these last two, in tension, that brought forth Wheaton College’s encounter with the Illinois legal system.

Edwin Hartley Pratt (1849-1930), a local student, was enrolled in the Academic program at Wheaton. He and several other students joined a local Good Templar’s lodge. Known officially as the Independent Order of Good Templars, this fraternal organization stood for many of the principles that Wheaton, and Jonathan Blanchard, held dear: equality for men and women, racial non-discrimination and temperance. It’s motto sounded very good and biblical — “Friendship, Hope and Charity.” However, it was still a secret society and Jonathan Blanchard would have none of it (having believed that the slave system was the work of secret societies).

So, the administration of Wheaton College (i.e. Jonathan Blanchard), tossed out Pratt and his co-secretists.

In response Pratt’s father sued Wheaton College under the belief and assumption that his son had done nothing illegal and therefore could not be expelled. A legal battle (Pratt v. Wheaton College) ensued that made its way to the Illinois Supreme Court. In a precedent-setting decision the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the right of Wheaton College, and any other school, to establish rules to govern the lives and discipline of its students, much in the same way that a parent would. As the ruling stated, “A discretionary power has been given, … [and] we have no more authority to interfere than we have to control the domestic discipline of a father in his family.” This firmly established the principle of in loco parentis.

In loco parentis is the legal doctrine that outlines a relationship that is similar to that of a parent to a child. The concept goes back hundreds of years and was embedded in English common-law that was borrowed from by American colonists. The Puritans put this idea to use and it found its way into American elementary and high schools, colleges, and universities. The legal system in the nineteenth century was unwilling to interfere when students brought grievances, particularly in the area of rules, discipline, and expulsion. However, this would change in the 1960s as all forms of authority were challenged.

One may wonder what ever happened to Pratt. After leaving Wheaton, he became a noted homeopathic physician and surgeon in Chicago and was known for his professional writing and work. He wrote Orificial Surgery And Its Application To The Treatment Of Chronic Diseases (1891 and dedicated to his father) and The composite man as comprehended in fourteen anatomical impersonations (1901 and published in several editions). He served as President of the Illinois Homoeopathic Medical Association and served on several medical boards and commissions. In 1877 he married Isadore M. Bailey (a Wheaton student from 1875-1877) with the Rev. C. P. Mercer of the Central Swedenborgen Society officiating. Pratt joined the Chicago Society of the New Jerusalem (Swedenborgian) in 1881.

Oddly enough, Pratt v. Wheaton College wasn’t the only time that Pratt was before the Illinois Supreme Court. In 1903 Pratt was sued for not gaining consent before conducting a hysterectomy on a mentally-ill patient. Pratt lost the case and was fined $3,000. He fought the ruling seeking redress before the Supreme Court. Yet, again, the court failed to rule in his favor.

Poor Pratt.

Theodore Wellington Jones was born on September 19, 1853 in Hamilton, Ontario during his parents temporary residence in that city . Soon after his parents returned to their native state, New York, and there remained until Theodore was twelve years old. In 1865 this very large family decided to make Illinois their home and settled in Chicago. Because his parents were poor and unable to give him even a common school education, Jones was compelled to support himself. At the age of fifteen years he was driving an express wagon, eventually establishing a successful express and moving business.

With his business established Jones wished to obtain an education to fill in the educational gaps of his childhood. Through the aid of private tutors and the “midnight oil,” he was able, when twenty-five years of age, to enter Wheaton College, Wheaton, Ill., where he remained three years. After his time at Wheaton he returned to his business in Chicago where his prosperity continued. He became the owner of a large brick storage warehouse at Twenty-Ninth Street and Shields Avenue, along with other valuable property. His business employed at one time three clerks and about fifty men, all individuals of color. In 1894, Theodore W. Jones was elected a County Commissioner of Cook County, Illinois on the Republican ticket. He was known to ably perform the duties of his office and he labored earnestly and unselfishly to advance the interests of African Americans in Chicago. During Mr. Jones’ term of office African Americans Cook County drew $50,000 in yearly salary — about seven times the amount paid into the county treasury by them. He was a valued member of the National Negro Business League and organized the branch league in Chicago, known as the Business Men’s League of Cook County. This league entertained the National League in Chicago, August 21, 22, 23, 1901. (adapted from Daniel Culp’s Twentieth Century Negro Literature)

Jones was considered one of the principal lieutenants of Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Machine in Chicago. Following Washington’s ideas, while a member of the Cook County Board of Commissioners and as an officer of the National Negro Business League, Jones sought to seek co-existence rather than integration. He didn’t view the problems of segregation as troublesome as some of his contemporaries. According to Allan Spear, in his great work Black Chicago, Jones said in January 1906 in Broad Ax that “the Southern Negro’s interest in the ballot is on the wane” and that “in these states where the disfranchisement laws are the most rigid, there thrift and repeated success has more than crowned the efforts of the Negro.” Jones later left Chicago, experiencing some difficulties. Records indicate that in 1908 he faced a bigamy charge in Kansas. Several years later he was reported to be in Richmond, Virgnia, where he was secretary-treasurer of the Negro Historical and Industrial Association, promoting the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of emancipation. (see Giles B. Jackson to BTW, Oct. 26, 1914, Con. 506, BTW Papers, OLC.)

For decades it has been believed that the Illinois Institute, and its later incarnation as Wheaton College, was a stop on the Underground Railroad. It was true that those institutions stood firmly on the principle of abolition and its leadership were heavily involved and known widely as abolitionists. They risked their lives to seek freedom for the enslaved.

Because it has been difficult to substantiate these beliefs and reports many at Wheaton College have felt less sure of the claims made by those more knowledgeable about the activities of the Underground Railroad in DuPage County. All that had been previously located was a reference to a quote by Maria Blanchard Cook that in Wheaton the Underground Railroad was operated above ground. Glennette Tilley Turner has spent decades researching and reporting on the freedrom trail as it ran through the county, but even her research had yet to uncover any written documentation to support claims that on their face held weight. It appears that the faith of many was well placed.

Dr. David Maas, of Wheaton’s history faculty, has been putting the finishing touches on a book manuscript detailing the abolitionist roots of Wheaton College and those that served in the United States Civil War. He made a recent discovery, related somewhat to Maria Cook, that challenges the cloud of uncertainty that has hung over this question.

While confirming a detail related to Ezra Cook’s service with the Thirty-ninth Regiment of the Illinois Volunteer Infantry he encountered Cook’s retelling of how he entered the service and his association with Wheaton College.

The outbreak of the war in the spring of 1861 found myself and two sisters attending Wheaton College, which had a national reputation as an Abolition school in an Abolition town. So strong was public sentiment that runaway slaves were perfectly safe in the College building, even when no attempt was made to conceal their presence, which was well known to the United States Marshal stationed there. With hundreds of others, I have seen and talked with such fugitives in the college chapel. Of course they soon took a night train well-guarded to the next station on the U. G. R. R.

Clark, Charles M. The history of the thirty-ninth regiment Illinois Volunteer Veteran Infantry. Chicago, 1889. p. 490.

This discovery is the fruition of much desire and interest. It confirms boldly–with its affirmation that “hundreds of others”–that in Wheaton the Underground Railroad was operated in full-view and above ground. It also provides very strong evidence that can support a claim that Wheaton College was a stop on the Underground Railroad. It solidifies the beliefs of many that the abolitionists in Wheaton and at the Institute and College put into action their principles despite the legal and financial risks to person and institution.

Cook’s statement has several internal strengths that help bolster his claim. He does not make himself the center of the story and states that many in the town stood behind the abolitionist activities of the school. Cook makes clear that the U.S. Marshal was aware of the activities — a statement that could easily have been challenged if it were untrue and known to be untrue by the townspeople. Finally, he states that he was not the only one to see the fugitives, but that there were hundreds of others. This could be viewed as hyperbole, but the college’s enrollment (in all of its academic programs) can support this claim.