A seeming incident is oft times sufficient to change the whole course of
a human life, to alter forever the intents and purposes of a plan of action
previously decided upon and to establish the subsequent fortunes of a
generation yet unborn. Thus, in the case of Charles W. Wheeler, had he
carried out his original plan of action and embarked on the South American
cruise to which he was practically committed by agreement, and for which he
was eminently fitted by previous experience and by his natural inclinations,
it is a foregone conclusion that the record of his life and work would read
differently than is set forth in the following brief history.
Charles
W. Wheeler was born in Stratford, Fairfield county, Connecticut, on October
10, 1840. The Wheeler family had been identified with that section of the
country since early colonial days, and in the struggle for independence
various members of the family took active and prominent parts. Samuel
Wheeler, the grandfather of Charles W. Wheeler, was born in those parts on
September 10, 1777, lived his life there and died on March 29, 1858, at the
age of eighty-one years. He was a seaman for a time, later a ship chandler,
and for many years ran a packet along the shores of the sound. He also owned
considerable land in the vicinity of his home. Among his several children
was Levi, the father of Charles W. Wheeler, born May 20, 1796, and passed
his life in the vicinity of his birth as a longshoreman and boatman. He
married Elvira, the daughter of Abijah and Abbie Betsey (Curtiss) Booth,
both being members of old families established in the Nutmeg state in the
early days of the young colonies, and she was born September 5, 1805, dying
on December 18, 1882. The issue of Levi and Elvira Wheeler were: Sarah A.,
who became the wife of Alfred Curtiss; Mary E., who married William H.
Batterson; Abbie H., who became Mrs. William Whipple; Francis Otis; Charles
W.; and Gertrude B., who married Bruce H. Weller.
The common schools
of the vicinity in which he lived and was reared gave to Charles W. Wheeler
such education as he was permitted to gain from books, although he was
trained in an atmosphere of thrift and industry that stood him in good stead
in later life. The home environments and his father's example no doubt did
much to instill in him the love for a seafaring life, and while yet a youth
of tender years he made many trips along the shore with skippers known to
him and the elder Wheeler. He worked for a time as a longshoreman, and later
as a minor clerk with a local merchant he gained some knowledge of that
business. The sea, however, drew him, and he made all plans to embark on a
series of voyages to South American ports as handy boy and skipper's
companion, when he was induced by a relative in Illinois to join him here.
The prospect of seeing life in the western country proved alluring to the
boy, and he finally abandoned the seafaring project and came to Illinois.
There he entered the employ of a railroad company with whom his relative was
connected, and he remained thus until the call for volunteers came at the
breaking out of the Rebellion, and he first enlisted in the state service
for thirty days at Newton, Jasper county, Colonel S. S. Good being in
command of the regiment and rendezvoused at Mattoon. When he entered the
United States service at Springfield it was as a member of Company K, of the
Twenty-first Infantry Volunteers with Colonel U. S. Grant in command. The
regiment rendezvoused at Springfield, Illinois, and was later ordered into
northern Missouri, where it scattered the Confederate command under General
Jeff Thompson, and at Mexico the sick of the command of Colonel Grant was
left in charge of Mr. Wheeler while the regiment moved southward to Pilot
Knob. Mr. Wheeler removed his invalid camp to St. Louis, and remained there
with it until June, 1862, at which time he was discharged from the army for
disability. During his service he had contracted a form of rheumatism which
totally incapacitated him for further duties of a military nature, and he
remained for several months at Olney, Illinois, while his health was
recuperating. In 1863 he came to Cairo and found employment with the Adams
Express Company, where he continued until the close of the war. Concluding
his service with the Adams Express Company, he entered the employ of Gaff,
Cochran & Company, a Cincinnati firm doing a hay and grain business in the
city of Cincinnati, supplying the Government with feed and doing an immense
volume of river business under contract. Following the termination of his
connection with them, Mr. Wheeler was in the employ of Trovar Homans &
Company and still later with the Cairo City Coal Company, in which
connection he learned the details of management which later enabled him to
establish and conduct a similar business on his own responsibility, which he
did in the early seventies. Thereafter he conducted a thriving wood and coal
business in Cairo until the year 1902, when he retired from that business
and went to live on the farm which he had acquired and development in recent
years. In 1882 Mr. Wheeler purchased a tract of land with a view to making
it the family home in later years, and he now has a quarter section of farm
land under cultivation, which for fertility and general productiveness
defies competition. There he has lived for the past ten years in happiness
and content, believing it to be the place of all places most suited to the
proper development and early training of his young children. Every other
interest in life is secondary to his determination to make a happy home for
his family and rear them amidst the beauties of nature, and there the
retired coal merchant of Cairo is spending his closing days in peace and
plenty.
Mr. Wheeler has been twice married. First at Gratiot,
Wisconsin, to Mrs. Amanda Spense, a daughter of Samuel Bragg. The children
of their union are: Sarah A., a resident of Jonesboro, Georgia; Ella, living
in St. Louis, Missouri; Josie, residing in Chicago, all three of whom are
married; Augusta and Charles, who died in infancy; and Charles F., still a
member of the family circle. The wife and mother passed away at the family
home in Cairo in 1895. Mr. Wheeler's second marriage made him the husband of
Agnes C. Glynn, a sister of John P. Glynn, one of the foremost business men
at Cairo. The children of his later marriage are Martha, Eugene, Elizabeth,
John P., Albert G. (commonly known as "Bill"), Abbie and Matthew.
In
retrospection, Mr. Wheeler can recall many an incident and thrilling
adventure beyond what is the usual lot of man. His early seafaring trips
when but a lad yield memories never to be forgotten; his war experience
marks an epoch in his life replete with interest and adventure; and his life
is full of memories that make him a most interesting raconteur, which will
never permit him to become other than a delightful companion to those with
whom he comes in contact.
The life of Mr. Wheeler has been lived
singularly apart from the influences of either religious or fraternal
organizations and in a political way he is inclined to act independent of
party interests, but always with a view to the betterment of general
conditions.
Extracted from 1912 History of Southern Illinois, Volume 2, pages 589-591.
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