Born at Frewsburg, N.Y., September 30, 1833, is the son of James Wheeler and the grandson of Josiah H. Wheeler, one of the Minute Men at Concord, Mass. He was reared in the Empire State, and was brought up in the lumber business, which his father followed, and in 1856 he came to Eau Claire, WI, where he remained until December, 1861 when he enlisted in Company G, Sixteenth Wisconsin Infantry, which company he raised and went out with as Captain, but was promoted to Major, and was as such mustered out in April, 1865 After his return from the service he took up the lumber business along the line of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway, dealing at various terminal points on that road, commencing at Clinton, Boone and including Jefferson, Denison, Woodbine, Dunlap, Iowa and Blair, Nebraska. He opened the first lumberyard in Dunlap in the summer of 1867, from three car-loads which he side-tracked at this point, there being no station house, post office, or other object to mark the spot of the town site. Later he purchased a lot upon which to establish his lumber-yard, and secured a yoke of oxen with which to draw the first invoice of lumber. His next move was to erect a frame office, which still (1891) stands and is used by Mr. Wheeler, and is not infrequently pointed out as the first building completed in Dunlap. The first year he was at Dunlap he also operated a yard at Woodbine. Mr. Wheeler has confined himself to the lumber trade continually since 1865, when he started at Clinton, Iowa, and followed up the line of construction of the Northwestern Railway. He is called the pioneer lumberman, because he furnished the first lumber at so many points in Iowa. Politically, he affiliates with the Democratic party. He belongs to the Knights of Pythias Lodge at Dunlap. He was married in 1876, at Hamburg, Iowa, to Nancy E. Tyler, a native of Wisconsin. Major Wheeler is a member of the democratic party, and in 1895 was nominated by his party for representative in the Twenty-sixth General Assembly, and was elected, notwithstanding the fact that Drake, the republican candidate for governor, had over 700 majority in the county. He was an intelligent and useful member of the house, serving on several important committees.
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