Joseph Franklin Wheeler

As printed in 1914

JOSEPH FRANKLIN WHEELER.

Among those to whom success has come as the result of diligence and intelligently directed effort is Joseph Franklin Wheeler, who is now living retired, although he still occupies the home farm on section 14, Harrison township. A native of Maine, he was born on the 4th of March, 1845, son of Joseph and Elmira (Langster) Wheeler, who in the year 1877 arrived in Boone county, where they lived for a number of years. Both are now deceased.

486 HISTORY OF iOONE COUNTY

Joseph F. Wheeler passed his boyhood days in the Pine Tree state, being about twenty years of age when he went west to Illinois, where he was employed as a farm hand for about two years. He enlisted at Dixon, Illinois, as a member of Company G, Fifteenth Illinois Infantry, with which he served for seven and one-half months. Following the close of his military service he returned to Illinois, where he remained for a year, when on account of ill health he returned to New England, establishing his home in Penobscot county, Maine, where he lived for six years. In 1877 be came to Boone county, where he has now made his home for thirty-seven years, and throughout this period has been identified with agricultural interests. He has worked hard, earning his success by the sweat of his brow, and as the years have passed by he has advanced steadily step by step until he is now numbered among the men of affluence in Harrison township.

On the 15th of March, 1875, Mr. Wheeler was united in marriage to Miss Elizabeth Gates, a daughter of Abel and Catherine (McFadden) Gates. Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler have four children: Joseph F., who married Carrie Stoll and follows farming in Harrison township; 'william Arthur, living in Scotia, California; Ella I., the wife of Charles Allen, who follows farming near Stanhope, Iowa; and Mary Agnes, the wife of Irving Ross, a resident farmer of this state living near Ogden.

With an automobile it is not difficult for Mr. Wheeler and his wife to reach the city and even more remote points, and the fact that he is now living retired enables him to enjoy motor trips through the country. In politics he is a republican but without ambition for office. He belongs to the Methodist church, and his fraternal relations are with E. L. Sheldahl Post, No. 439, G. A. R., of Story City, by which means he maintains pleasant relations with his old army comrades who wore the lille uniform during the darkest hours in the country's history. He is today as true and loyal to the government as when in times of war he followed the old flag upon the battlefields of the south.

As printed in History of Boone County, Iowa (1914). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.