Grundy County IL Archives Biographies.....Wheeler, George E 
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/il/ilfiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Deb Haines ddhaines@gmail.com May 13, 2006, 8:31 pm

Author: History of Grundy County, 1914

Wheeler, George E., one of the representative men of Grundy County now living 
retired at Mazon, has exerted a powerful influence upon the history of his 
locality in many ways. Before his retirement he was one of the leading farmers 
of the county. The Wheeler family, of which he is a representative, comes of 
the old Puritan New England stock. The remote founders of the family in 
America came from England in the days of Puritan emigration from that country. 
The following account of the genealogy of the family is taken from a 
memorandum left by the late Henry H. Wheeler, father of George E. Wheeler.

Thomas Wheeler, the great-great grandfather of the immediate subject of this 
sketch, was the first of the name of whom we have any record. He died while 
returning from the French and Indian war at Fite Miller tavern, near Pine 
Plains, Columbia County, N. Y., September 1, 1757. He is believed to have had 
a brother Solomon and they are thought to have lived at Woodbury, Conn., until 
1749. Seth Wheeler, a son of Thomas and great-grandfather of George E. 
Wheeler, was born February 22, 1749, and was a captain in the patriot service 
in the Revolutionary War. He married Mary Treadwell, born November 23, 1751, 
and they had children, as follows: Thomas, born September 1, 1770; Ashbell, 
born August 17, 1772; Seth, Jr., born September 3, 1776; Mary, born September 
25, 1778, who married S. Truesdale; Thomas, born January 31, 1781; Sarah, born 
June 10, 1783, who married John Truesdale; Lucy, born February 13, 1786, who 
married John Gilbert; Stephen, born June 6, 1789, died May 9, 1861, aged 
seventy-one years, eleven months and three days; Solomon, born July 25, 1793, 
died May 7, 1852. Myron Wheeler, a son of Seth, Jr., married Catherine Roe and 
was killed in the battle of Buena Vista in the Mexican War. Stephen, a son of 
Seth Wheeler, born June 6, 1789, was married March 30, 1818, to Maria Powers, 
born October 20, 1795, and their children were as follows: Henry Harrison, 
born January 28, 1820; Mary, born March 8, 1822; Frederick Powers, born June 
4, 1824; Richard Nelson, born February 21, 1826; John, born March 25, 1828; 
Frances, born April 10, 1830, who died February 15, 1832; Caroline F., born 
February 1, 1832, and died January 28, 1889; Sarah J., born September 28, 
1834, who died March 14, 1835; Franklin, born February 20, 1836, who died 
November 24, 1863; Sarah J., born July 16, 1840; Helen D. (twin of Sarah J.), 
who married Edward C. Moody, November 26, 1862, and died June 24, 1879. 
Stephen died May 9, 1861; Maria, his wife, January 4, 1875. Henry Harrison 
Wheeler (a son of Stephen and Maria (Powers) Wheeler and Amanda R. Simmons 
were married October 16, 1849; Richard N. Wheeler and Lucy J. Wilson were 
married March 30, 1851; Sarah J. Wheeler and George W. Mersereau were married 
November 10, 1861.

Maria Powers, who married Stephen Wheeler, was the daughter of Frederick 
Powers, who was born March 31, 1765, and died December 21, 1831. He married 
Ruth Pennoyer, who was born February 25, 1767, and died July 16, 1853. The 
children of Frederick and Ruth (Pennoyer) Powers were as follows: Lucy, born 
October 4, 1779, who died October 2, 1803; David, born May 30, 1791, who died 
August 24, 1849; Talbot, born August 28, 1793, who died November 28, 1874; 
Maria, born October 20, 1795, who died June 4, 1875; Julia A., born May 18, 
1797, who died June 6, 1875; George, born December 27, 1798, who died 
September 21, 1803; Caroline F., born March 3, 1801, who died November 9, 
1888; Lydia, born September 16, 1802, who died June 19, 1883; William, born 
August 27, 1804, who died September 30, 1805; Frances W., born December 22, 
1806; Charlotte J., born December 22, 1810.

Stephen Wheeler, grandfather of George E. Wheeler, became a farmer, but in 
early life was a carpenter. He owned a farm of 200 acres in Broome County, N. 
Y., where he died. Henry H. Wheeler, a son of Stephen and Maria (Powers) 
Wheeler, was born in Dutchess County, N. Y., January 28, 1820. He received a 
good education for the time, primarily in the common schools, and finishing 
his studies at Amenia seminary, located on his father's farm, in which his 
father was a stockholder. Mr. Wheeler was throughout his life a wide reader of 
good books and kept well up with the times. He married, in Broome County, N. 
Y., October 16, 1849, Amanda Simmons, who was born October 6, 1822, in 
Dutchess County, N. Y., a daughter of William and Clarissa (Roe) Simmons. 
William Simmons was born August 7, 1785, in Dutchess County, N. Y. He was the 
son of Nicholas Simmons, of sturdy Holland-Dutch stock, and the grandson of 
Peter Simmons, who came from Holland in the eighteenth century and settled in 
the northern part of Dutchess County, or possibly in the adjoining County of 
Columbia, New York. Nicholas Simmons married Katrina Snyder, also of Holland-
Dutch stock and born on the farm adjoining his father's. They had ten 
children: Katrina, William, Henry, Anna, John, Charity, Hannah, Betsy, Polly 
and Anthony. Nicholas Simmons lived to be nearly eighty years old and died in 
Broome County, New York. In politics he was a Democrat. William Simmons, the 
father of Mrs. Henry H. Wheeler, was a soldier in the United States Army in 
the War of 1812, and came near death from yellow fever while in the service. 
He was a prosperous farmer, entirely a self-made man, of upright character and 
a remarkable physical constitution. He was twice married, the first time to 
Clarissa Roe, in 1813, in the town of North East, Dutchess County, N. Y., 
where she was born March 7, 1794, a daughter of Silas and Mercy (Harvey) Roe. 
They settled on the Roe farm in Dutchess County, and lived there about ten 
years, and there she died September 13, 1827. For his second wife, he married 
Wealthy Roe, her cousin, who bore him two daughters:  Clarissa, December 8, 
1832 and Laura, December 31, 1833. By the first wife (Clarissa Roe) there were 
born five children. The eldest of these, Harvey R., born September 29, 1814, 
married Almira Marsh, who died January 2, 1889. They had two children who 
lived: Eugene W., born in 1840; and Rollin, born in 1846. Edward, the second 
son of William and Clarissa (Roe) Simmons, was born April 14, 1816, and was 
twice married, first to Harriet Winchell. His second wife was Sarah (Mead) 
Trowbridge. There were two children by the first marriage: Alfred, who lived 
to be twenty-two years of age; and James, who died when two years old.

Of Edward Simmons more than a passing notice should be given. He lived at 
Millerton, Dutchess County, N. Y., near where he was born, and was one of the 
oldest lawyers in that part of the State, having reached the venerable age of 
ninety years when he died in 1905. He was distinguished for his prominence at 
the bar, his educational work and for long activity in public affairs. In the 
winter of 1832-3, he began teaching school in Lime Rock, Conn., and from that 
time until 1848, he followed that occupation with marked success. In 1838-9 he 
taught a school of a high grade at Greene, Chenango County, N. Y., and from 
there went to Great Barrington, Mass., teaching Latin and Greek and the higher 
English branches. In 1843 he returned to Millerton and with Alexander 
Winchell, afterward prominent as a geologist and long a conspicuous member of 
the faculty of the University of Michigan, opened a private school. Mr. 
Simmons built the store in Millerton now occupied by James Finch, and engaged 
in a general merchandise business there, which he conducted twenty-five years 
and then transferred to Mr. Finch, who had been his clerk for fifteen years. 
In 1867, Mr. Simmons was admitted to the bar. He has been a successful lawyer 
and was a member of the New York State Bar Association and ever gave some 
attention to legal matters. He was the financial secretary of the New York 
State Constitutional convention in 1867, of which William A. Wheeler was the 
President and Samuel J. Tilden, Horace Greeley and other well known men of the 
time were members. He filled the office of Supervisor for five terms, and was 
the chairman of the board for one term, and he was also a member of the 
committee which appeared before the State Board of Assessors and secured a 
reduction in the assessment of Dutchess County, which in three years saved the 
taxpayers $200,000. He was an advocate of good schools and favored every local 
improvement. Politically he was a free-soil Democrat in early years, but voted 
for Fremont in 1856, and since that time had been a Republican. He had been a 
member of the Baptist Church for sixty-four years, and was a member of the 
Masonic fraternity. (The above sketch of Edward W. Simmons was taken from a 
Dutchess County [New York] newspaper.)

Julia A., a daughter of William and Clarissa (Roe) Simmons, was born February 
5, 1819, married Lewis W. Barnes and died in September, 1851, leaving a 
daughter, Eva Julia, born August 27, 1846. Amanda, another of their daughters, 
who married Henry H. Wheeler, will be noticed more at length further on. James 
Barlow Simmons, the fifth and last in the family, was born April 17, 1827, and 
married Mary Stephens, and they were the parents of Dr. Robert Stephens 
Simmons. William Simmons, the father of the above mentioned children, died in 
Dutchess County, July 14, 1868. Silas Roe, the father of Clarissa (Roe) 
Simmons, was an Englishman and a man of means, who owned a farm at North East, 
Dutchess County, which contained 300 acres valued at $100 arm acre. He died on 
the place, at a venerable age. His children were Uzziel, Annie, Jeduthun, 
Laura, Julia, Carolina, Amos, Clarissa, Lyman, Harvey, Harmon, Julia, Alvah 
and Amanda.

Mr. and Mrs. Henry H. Wheeler, parents of George E. Wheeler, moved to 
Illinois, in May, 1850, not long after their marriage. They came to Chicago by 
way of the lakes, and thence penetrated the state as far as Morris. They 
settled on the farm, where the immediate subject of this sketch lived until 
his retirement, then consisting of 160 acres, on which had been built a double 
log house. A small crop had been put in. Mr. Wheeler paid $500 for the place 
and improved it and made it a good home farm. In political opinion he was a 
stanch Republican, and one of the original members of the party, having voted 
for John C. Fremont. As a citizen he was honored, respected and influential in 
the township. A friend of good schools, he was for many years a member of the 
Board of Education; and he also held the office of assessor in his township. 
In early life he was inclined to military affairs and held the office of 
lieutenant in a militia company in New York. He was one of the respected 
pioneers of Grundy County because of his strong, fearless, outspoken character 
and his upright and straight forward treatment of every one. An old neighbor 
said of him: “He was always honest and fair. He was independent in thought and 
always frank in his expression of his views." Mr. and Mrs. Henry H. Wheeler 
were the parents of three children: George E., born February 20, 1851; Elmer 
E., born September 18, 1860, who died March 13, 1862; and Clara May, born 
January 20, 1863. Mr. Wheeler died January 27, 1897, at his residence in 
Morris, where he had lived since May, 1873. Mrs. Wheeler died October 27, 
1907, eighty-five years of age. She was a lady of excellent memory and much 
beloved for her high character. Their daughter, Clara May, married Abraham J. 
Neff, January 21, 1891, and has three children: Mae A. born in 1891; Paul A., 
born in 1892; and Dorothy, born in 1899.

George E. Wheeler is one of the oldest continuous residents of Grundy County. 
He was born on the Wheeler homestead in Mazon Township, where he lived until 
retired, when he moved to Mazon, Ill. He was brought up to farming among the 
pioneers and can well remember many of them. His education was obtained in the 
common schools of the county. In the fall of 1869, he was given a certificate 
as a schoolteacher, by the late Hiram C. Goold, then county superintendent of 
schools. He taught school four winters, working the remainder of the year on 
the farm. Having received his education and taught in the schools of his 
neighborhood he fully realizes the necessity of better schools, so that the 
youth who has to acquire an education in this manner may have every 
opportunity. He is in favor of paying liberal wages to teachers-enough to 
secure the highest ability, so that all the preparatory branches and even some 
of the higher courses might be taught in the home schools. He has been a 
school trustee for ten years. He married, October 11, 1871, in Good Farm 
Township, Grundy County, Ill., Mary J. Keepers, who was born March 16, 1854, 
in Guernsey County, Ohio, a daughter of Israel J. and Mary (Kimble) Keepers. 
Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler settled on the Wheeler homestead and by steady thrift and 
industry, have prospered and are the owners of two fine fertile farms, one 
consisting of 200 acres, the location of the old homestead, and the other 120 
acres. Mr. Wheeler has served his fellow townsmen as Supervisor well and 
faithfully.

The following is an extract from the Morris Herald: "He (Mr. Wheeler) was 
first elected in 1885, serving two terms. He was again elected in the spring 
of 1889, and he served continuously until 1899, succeeding himself. He has 
been chairman of the Board during five years of this long service. In polities 
he is always a Republican."

When Mr. Wheeler first became a member of the Board of Supervisors, a levy of 
$40,000 was required to pay running expenses and indebtedness. He has seen a 
business policy developed, and has helped to develop it, until this has been 
materially reduced. At one time county officers were allowed to retain all the 
fees of their offices, and in one case this amounted to $3,750 per annum, 
which is in excess of the maximum limit fixed by the constitution of the State 
of Illinois to the amount of $750. Mr. Wheeler was an advocate and aided in 
the adoption of such legislation by the board as to allow officers a 
reasonable salary for services, and providing for an accounting of fees earned 
to the county. He occupies an enviable place in the esteem of the people of 
Grundy County, owing to his services in securing favorable action toward the 
care of the poor of the county by one person. It was Mr. Wheeler who wrote and 
presented the resolution to the board, which was adopted, providing for the 
appointment of a county agent for the poor. He has long been of the opinion, 
from his actual knowledge of the work, that better relief could be afforded in 
this matter, and more economically, under the supervision of one person, and 
the people at large better protected. There seems little question now of the 
wisdom of Mr. Wheeler's foresight. It has created a reform which has saved the 
people thousands of dollars a year, and yet has taken care of every needy case 
of want or suffering in the county, weeding out imposters and others who 
preferred to accept a public charity rather than work. In matters of reform 
Mr. Wheeler is sometimes termed radical, yet his years of experience have 
proven of great value to the people at large, and the measures he has 
advocated, as a rule, have resulted satisfactorily.

Mr. Wheeler was the president of the Vienna Township Mutual Insurance Company, 
which is chartered to do business in the townships of Vienna, Highland, 
Norman, Good Farm, Mazon and Wauponsee. Since then merged into the Mazon 
Mutual County Fire Insurance Company. The company had over $2,336,688.00 on 
December 31, 1913, in policies in force and he has been one of its nine 
directors for many years. He also is an earnest advocate of good roads and 
believes in the policy of beginning at once to improve the roads and doing as 
much as is consistent with the means at hand and in a practical and economical 
manner. No man is more favorably regarded in Grundy County than George E. 
Wheeler, and he has fairly won the high esteem in which he is held by his 
honest efforts in behalf of the people.

The children of George E. and Mary J. (Keepers) Wheeler are Effie Pearl, born 
March 11, 1877, and Vernon, born July 23, 1886. The former married on January 
29, 1902, James Williams, a son of Evan and Sarah (Shannon) Williams. Evan 
Williams was born in the North of Ireland, while his wife was born at 
Llanarmour, Wales. Mr. and Mrs. James Williams have had the following 
children: Loyal Arlan, who was born July 27, 1903; Azel Wheeler, who was born 
August 13, 1905; and Edward Evan who was born September 22, 1913. Vernon 
Wheeler was married July 14, 1910, to Margaret Jennie Winterbottom, born July 
3, 1889, a daughter of John and Mary (William) Winterbottom, the former of 
whom was born in England, and the latter in Wales. The children born of this 
union have been as follows: Russel Edwin, who was born April 27, 1911; and 
Kenneth, who was born July 5, 1912. Mrs. Wheeler and her daughter are members 
of the Baptist Church.

William Keepers, a great-grandfather of Mrs. George E. Wheeler, of the old 
colonial stock, was the owner of a good farm in Chester County, Pa., where he 
lived and died. He married Ann Hayes, of Pennsylvania, and had children as 
follows: John, Joseph H., Kate, Elizabeth and Jane. After his death his wife 
(Ann) married again and had one daughter, Ann. Joseph H. Keepers, a son of 
William and grandfather of Mrs. George E. Wheeler, was born in Chester County. 
He married in that county, Hannah P. Jordan and they moved to western 
Pennsylvania and settled in Beaver County. About 1835, they moved to Guernsey 
County, Ohio, with teams. There he was a pioneer and became a substantial 
farmer. A member of the Baptist Church, he was a straightforward, honorable 
man of the highest Christian character. His children were: Phoebe A., William, 
Sarah J., Israel J., Joseph, Mary E., Hannah M., Philena and Henrietta. Mrs. 
Joseph H. Keepers died April 25, 1873, aged sixty-eight, at the home of her 
daughter, Mrs. Hannah M. Warnock, in Iroquois County, Ill. Mr. Keepers died in 
Guernsey County, Ohio, December 6, 1842, scarcely past middle age.

Israel Jordan Keepers, the father of Mrs. Wheeler, went with his parents to 
Guernsey County, Ohio, in 1835, when he was about seven years old. There he 
received a good common school education a married, in Jefferson Township, 
August 22, 1850, Mary Kimble, a daughter of Adam and Ann Marie (Huffman) 
Kimble. Adam was the son of Nathan and Betsy (Davis) Kimble. Nathan Kimble was 
born in Germany. He came to America, settled in New Jersey and served his 
adopted country seven years and six months in the Revolutionary War. He 
afterward located in Washington County, Pa. From there he came to Guernsey, 
Ohio, as a pioneer in 1810, and took up and improved government land. He died 
in 1824, and is buried in Jefferson Township, Guernsey County. He was elected 
a justice of the peace in 1816 and was the first to hold that office in 
Guernsey County. In 1817 he was the chairman of the meeting to organize 
Jefferson Township. Nathan Kimble's children were: Adam, William, Washington, 
Robert, Jane and Mary. His first wife, Betsy Davis, died in Guernsey County, 
Ohio, and he married Rebecca Crawford, and their children were: Nathan George, 
Cyrus, Matilda, and Sarah A. Nathan Kimble's farm was known as Congress Field 
and was a fine property. In the early Indian troubles the family frequently 
took refuge in a rude blockhouse which stood close by their cabin. Mr. Kimble 
had a claim to land near Winchester, Ohio, by virtue of a soldier's warrant 
for his services in the Revolutionary War.

Adam Kimble, Nathan Kimble's oldest child, was born in New Jersey, in 1794, 
and married Ann Marie Huffman, who was born October 15, 1800, and died in 
1878. She was of sturdy Pennsylvania-Dutch stock, a daughter of John and Betsy 
(McClellan) Huffman, natives of that state. John Huffman was a pioneer in 
Guernsey County, Ohio, before 1800, from “The Glades” of Washington County, 
Pa. The Huffmans were originally from Germany.  John Huffman cleared his 
forest farm and became a well-to-do and substantial farmer. He lived to be 
about seventy years old and died in Ohio, a member of the Presbyterian Church. 
John and Elizabeth (McClellan) Huffman were the parents of children named: 
George, Joseph, Abraham, Benjamin, John, Elizabeth and Mary. Adam Kimble was a 
soldier in the War of 1812. After his marriage to Ann Marie Huffman, he 
settled in Jefferson Township, Guernsey County, Ohio, and owned in time the 
fine property called Congress Field, besides much other land, and was 
considered well off. His children were: Elizabeth, Rebecca, Delilah, Davis, 
Huffman, William, Jane, Mary, Sallie, Eliza, Nancy, George, Nathan and Robert. 
The latter died in infancy. All the others lived to grow up. Nancy died, aged 
twenty-two years. The others, eight of whom are living, all reared families. 
Adam Kimble died January 4, 1862, as the result of a fall the previous New 
Year’s Eve. His wife lived to be seventy-eight years old. They were members of 
the Baptist Church. Israel J. Keeper's settled in Guernsey County, Ohio, on 
the old Keepers home property, which consisted of 225 acres of land and a 
sawmill, which he owned in partnership with his brother Joseph. In September, 
1864, he enlisted in Company I, One Hundred and Seventy-sixth Regiment Ohio 
Volunteer Infantry, for three years or during the war, and was honorably 
discharged at the close of the struggle. His regiment was stationed at 
Nashville, Tenn. He came to Grundy County, Ill., and settled in Good Farm 
Township, in 1866, and bought 123 acres of land. This farm was well improved 
and he lived on it until 1883. At that time he bought another farm in the same 
township, but never occupied it as a residence. He retired in 1884, and for 
some years lived at Gardner, Ill., but died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. 
Carrie Taylor, at Mazon, Ill., October 3, 1892, aged about sixty-three years. 
He was a member of the Baptist Church, in which he was for many years an 
elder, and his official place in the church was filled by his son, William I. 
Politically he was a stanch Republican. A friend of education, he was long a 
school director, and he was a much trusted man of fine business capacity, and 
was the administrator of several estates and executor of a number of wills. 
His children are: William I., Mary J., Joseph H., Caroline, Hannah Myrtle and 
Olive W. Mrs. Keepers, his widow, who was born June 17, 1831, is a lady of 
intelligence and greatly beloved by all for her many good qualities of head 
and heart. It is said of her that “she is a mother to all." This is true 
especially in times of sickness and trouble. Her home is now with her children.

pages 919-923

Additional Comments:
Source:  History of Grundy County, Illinois, Chicago: Munsell Publishing Co. 
Publishers; 1914

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/grundy/bios/wheeler1049nbs.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/ilfiles/

File size: 23.4 Kb