Brown County MN Archives Biographies.....Wheeler, Edward E. 1862 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 November 26, 2014, 11:58 pm

Source: See Below
Author: L. A. Fritsche

REV. EDWARD E. WHEELER.

    The pastor of the Congregational church at New Ulm, Rev. Edward E. Wheeler,
is doing a commendable work and is popular with all classes. He was born at
Grafton, Vermont, January 20, 1862, and is a son of Melanchthon Gilbert and
Frances C. (Parkinson) Wheeler. The father was born at Charlotte, Vermont, May
22, 1802, and the mother at Columbia, Coos county, New Hampshire, March 9, 1819.
She was a daughter of Robert and Elizabeth (Kelso) Parkinson. Her grandfather,
Henry Parkinson, came from Londonderry, in the north of Ireland, and settled
near Concord, New Hampshire. He graduated from Princeton College, then called
Nassau Hall. He excelled as a classical scholar and fitted many students for
Dartmouth College. He served in the Revolutionary War and was at one time
quartermaster in Col. John Stark's regiment.

    Robert Parkinson was born in Francestown, New Hampshire, May 18,1781, passed
his youth in Concord and Canterbury, then secured a farm in Columbia, where he
built of hewn timber the best house at that time in the county. The embargo of
the War of 1812 with England brought him financial distress by making unsalable
a large consignment of lumber which he had delivered for shipment at Portland,
Maine. He also lost through endorsement of a friend's note. He had been honored
by election to the state Legislature, but now with wife and six children, went
to live in poverty in New Boston, New Hampshire, where his wife's father had
secured to her a house and lot.

From that time all the honors of the battle went to the devoted wife, a woman of
sincerest piety, cheerful disposition, and untiring energy. The children had to
work hard, but studied early and late to secure such education as the town
furnished. After finishing the course of the district school, they attended a
high school kept three months in the year by a college student. After her
mother's death in 1837, Frances C. Parkinson went with her brothers and sisters
to live in Nashua, where part of the family attended an academy kept by David
Crosby. She did excellent work in this school, reading much Latin, and excelling
the boys of her class in mathematics. In 1838 she was elected to teach in one of
the graded public schools of Nashua. She spent her vacations in study at the
academy. After about three years she was offered a much better position as
teacher in the Young Ladies' Seminary at Milford, New Hampshire, where she
remained four years. She thus earned a special course in Mt. Holyoke Seminary at
South Hadley, Massachusetts, where she made the acquaintance and friendship of
the principal, Mary Lyon, a wonderful woman in many ways. Then she was engaged
to take charge of the girls' high school at Northampton, Massachusetts, where
she remained until her marriage to M. G. Wheeler, May 4, 1848, at Nashua, New
Hampshire.

     M. G. Wheeler was the son of Hon. Zadoc Wheeler, who was chief judge of the
county court and represented the town of Charlotte, Vermont, for several terms
in the state Legislature. M. G. Wheeler's mother was Mary Holbrook, of Boston.
Her father taught a ladies' school in Boston for many years, in a building
standing on the corner of Washington and West streets. Melanchthon knew that his
mother longed and prayed that he might enter the ministry. His uncle, Judge
Wheeler, of Whitehall, New York, who had become a man of wealth, invited bim to
enter his office after graduating from college and promised to do all in his
power to advance his worldly interests, on condition that he would take up the
study of law and abandon his purpose to become a pastor; but in memory of his
mother's wish, he put aside the temptation and decided to press on with his
preparation for the ministry. He graduated from Union College, Schenectady, New
York, in the class of 1825, receiving the second honor—"The Philosophical
Oration." In 1826 he entered Princeton Theological Seminary, where he studied
for two years, then joined the seminary at Andover, Massachusetts, in hope of
receiving benefit from manual labor, for which there was more opportunity than
at Princeton. He graduated here with honor on September 23, 1829. His first
pastorate was at Falmouth, Massachusetts, where the severe climate, coupled with
the sometimes reckless zeal of his young manhood, caused serious throat trouble,
from which he never fully recovered and which required frequent, though brief,
periods of rest and many refusals to urgings to make his pastorates more
permanent. He held the following positions with unvarying success, when not
disabled by poor health—pastorates at Abington Center, Massachusetts, October,
1831, to August, 1833; Conway, Massachusetts, December, 1833, to August, 1841.
Following this he worked a year as financial secretary of the Alt. Holyoke
Female Seminary; then, against medical advice, resumed preaching, as pastor of
the Congregational Church in Williamsburg, Massachusetts, October, 1842, to
March, 1846; then as supply, for a few months, of the Jonathan Edwards Church in
Northampton. In 1848 he followed Dr. Caleb Tenney as agent of the Massachusetts
Colonization Society, and continued this work seven years, then resumed pastoral
labors for the rest of his life, as pastor of the church at South Dartmouth,
Massachusetts, from October, 1855, for four years; then at Grafton, Vermont,
from the fall of 1859, for three years; then at West Roxbury, Massachusetts, now
included in Boston, for three years until July, 1865, when he was installed over
the North church in Woburn- Massachusetts, where he remained unifi1 his death on
February 9, 1870. Here, with the savings of a lifetime, he purchased ten acres
of land and a fine old colonial house built in 1880 by Colonel Baldwin, after
whom the Baldwin apple was named. This house is now the home of E F. Wheeler's
youngest sister, Mrs. W. W. Hill. Rev. Melanchthon Wheeler's widow survived
until January 1, 1905, and was buried from this home in Woburn. By almost
superhuman effort she kept the home out of debt, kept the children in school
until they became self-supporting, and frequently entertained old friends and
visiting clergymen.

     To the union of these parents five children were born: Elizabeth Parkinson,
now deceased, who taught in the Woburn high school and married John R. Carter, a
civil engineer of Woburn, and became the mother of three boys, Charles, who
graduated from Dartmouth College and is now clerk in the Bank of the Metropolis,
New York; Morris, who led his class at Harvard and is now custodian of the
Boston Art Museum; and Royal, a Dartmouth graduate, now in business in the
Philippines; John Henry Wheeler, the second child, who graduated at Harvard
University, standing third in rank in the large class of 1871, taught for one
year in the private classical school in Boston of Professor Noble, entered the
Harvard law school and was admitted to the bar in 1873, received from Harvard
the degree of Master of Arts at the annual commencement in 1875, was appointed
Fellow in Greek at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in 1876, received
an appointment to a Parker Fellowship of Harvard, which enabled him to study
three years in Europe; in August, 1879, received from the University of Bonn,
Germany, the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, then from September, 1879, to July,
1880, studied the manuscripts of classical authors in the libraries of Venice,
Florence, Rome, Naples, Pompeii, and Paris, was tutor in Greek and Latin at
Harvard 1880-1881, then professor of Latin at Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine,
from June, 1881, to June, 1882, then professor of Greek at the University of
Virginia until his death on October 10, 1887. He left a valuable library, most
of which was presented to Middlebury College. Caroline A., the third child, is a
graduate of Wellesley College, and is now the wife of Pres. Charles H. Cooper,
of the Mankato, Minnesota, State Normal School. Their children are Helen, who
teaches in the East high school, Minneapolis; Margaret, who teaches in a college
at Des Moines, and Robert, who is a student in Carleton College. Cornelia
Frances, the fourth child, took a special course at Wellesley College and is the
wife of William W. Hill, general agent of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance
Company of Milwaukee, residing in her father's home in Woburn, Massachusetts.
They have two daughters, graduates of Wellesley; Avis, the wife of Rev. Theodore
Berle of Reading, Massachusetts, and Elizabeth, who is still a student. Avis has
three daughters. Edward Francis, the subject of this sketch, was the youngest
child.

     Rev. Edward E. Wheeler spent his childhood from the age of three in Woburn,
Massachusetts, graduated from the high school there, when sixteen years old,
after a three years course, and entered Dartmouth College in the class of 1883,
but the serious interruption of typhoid fever in the spring of the sophomore
year, combined with an invitation from his brother, Professor Wheeler, to live
with him at Brunswick, induced him to change to Bowdoin College, Brunswick,
Maine, where he graduated in 1883. He then taught in the evening school of the
Woburn high school for a short time; then was commissioned by the Congregational
Home Missionary Society, and came to Appleton, Minnesota, in the fall of 1885,
and for a year preached here and in various country school houses, founding the
missions— now churches—at Dawson and Madison, Minnesota, driving long distances
and enduring the usual hardships of a new country and severe climate until the
fall of 1886, when he entered the Theological Seminary at Hartford, Connecticut,
graduating there with the class of 1889. Invitations to supply in the vicinity
of Hartford enabled him to take a post-graduate course there until May, 1890,
when he accepted a call to Grace Union church, North Wilbraham, Massachusetts,
where he was ordained and installed on May 14, 1890. In January, 1893, he
accepted a call to the Church of the Redeemer, St. Louis, Missouri, where he
labored five years; then for nearly four years was pastor of the First
Congregational church of Austin, Minnesota; then served as pastor at Newell,
Iowa, for three years, and on July 1, 1905, after supplying here for several
Sundays, began his present pastorate at New Ulm, which is making a reputation
for keeping her public servants.

     Rev. Mr. Wheeler was married on July 11, 1891, to Clarissa Anna Goar, a
daughter of Joseph J. and Lavinia (Fisher) Goar. She was born in the town of
Berlin, Tipton county, Indiana. Her father served throughout the Civil War in
Company C, Tenth Indiana Volunteer Regiment. He is still living in good health
and has a fine farm at Montevideo. Minnesota, which he took as a homestead soon
after the war. To Rev. and Mrs. Wheeler three children have been born, namely:
Clara, who died when one year old; Elizabeth Parkinson, and Joseph Edward. These
two graduated together from the New Ulm high school, then Ellizabeth finished
the three years' course at the Mankato State Normal School and is now teaching
in the Lincoln school in St. Peter, while Joseph worked as bookkeeper in the
Eagle roller mill, and has finished his second year of study in the University
of Chicago.

     Politically, Rev. Wheeler votes independently. He is a member of the Psi
Upsilon college fraternity and of the Masonic order, including the Mystic
Shrine. He has been high priest in the chapter and was prelate for several years
and then commander for one year of DeMolay Commandery No. 26, Knights Templar.
While in St. Louis he served several years as state secretary and treasurer of
the Congregational church conference, and is now registrar of the western
association of the Minnesota Congregational churches. By election of the boys,
he is serving as scout master of Troop No. 1, Boy Scouts of America.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:
HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY MINNESOTA
ITS PEOPLE, INDUSTRIES AND INSTITUTIONS

L. A. FRITSCHE. M. D.
Editor

With Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens and Genealogical Records
of Many of the Old Families

VOLUME II
B. F. BOWEN & COMPANY, Inc. Indianapolis, Indiana


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