Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 679
MAJOR JOHN R. WHEELER

Major John R. WHEELER (Portrait), who has been a lumber dealer at Dunlap, Iowa, since July, 1867, was born at Frewsburg, NY, 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 afterwards followed through the Revolutionary War, he served through the entire conflict, in our struggle for national independence. Josiah H. WHEELER was also a patriotic man, having served his country. The father of our subject married Miss Nancy ROSE, who was reared in England. Both she and her husband died a the old homestead in New York.

John R. 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.

John received two wounds, the first at the battle of Pittsburg Landing, which was the first engagement he was in. He was shot through the upper lip. His company lost six men, with thirty-three wounded. July 21, 1865, in front of Atlanta he was wounded with a bullet passing through both of his thighs, and was kept under fire for ten days thereafter before he could be removed from the field. The surgeons advised the amputation of one limb, but he would not submit to it. Other engagements included Corinth, Vicksburg, the Seige of Atlanta and the last fight was at Wises' Forks, where he met Bragg and Hook.

After his return from the service, our subject again 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, postoffice, 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 unfrequently pointed out as the first building completed in Dunlap. The office afforded sleeping accommodations for a number of men for a long time, while the first buildings of the place were being erected. The first year he was at Dunlap he also operated a yard at Woodbine, having located there in December, 1866, when there was only one completed building in the place, his office being the third structure of any kind. He sold thousands of bills to the early settlers in the vicinity of Dunlap. The people had plenty of money as it was just at the close of the war and grain was selling at a high price, and all seemed in a prosperous condition. 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 Northwesterb 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, and they are the parents of one child -- John R., born in 1880.

Mrs. WHEELER is a daughter of William A. TYLER, a native of Ohio, and Jane B. (BROWN) TYLER, a naive of New York; the former died in Wisconsin, and the latter still resides in Hamburg, Iowa.

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