My Genealogy Hound

John W. Wheeler, a successful and prosperous miller of Union Township, Pulaski Co., Mo., was born in Osage County, of that State, in 1855, and is a son of William E. and Minerva (Sherrill) Wheeler, and grandson of John and Eliza B. (Wise) Wheeler. The latter were born in Virginia and Kentucky, in 1791 and 1799, and died in 1848 and 1845, respectively. They were married in Kentucky, and in 1825 moved to Manchester, Mo. William E. Wheeler is one of their five children, four living, whose names are as follows: Charlotte M. (Miller), Frances A. (Keith), William E., Lydia B. (Mason) and Luther H. (deceased). William E. was born in Mason County, Ky., March 16, 1825, and received a good education in a high-school of St. Louis, and at the age of eighteen began clerking in a store in that city, spending the years 1848 and 1852 in traveling over Southwest Missouri, selling a patent medicine for Dr. I. H. Hale, of Manchester, Mo. In January, 1848, he espoused Miss Sherrill, who was born in Tennessee in 1829, and is a daughter of Samuel Sherrill, who married a Miss Gatewood, also natives of Tennessee. The father was a farmer and cabinet workman, and was a soldier in the Black Hawk War. Catherine (Murphy) is their only living child in a family of seven children. Mrs. Wheeler died July 19, 1877, having borne a family of twelve children, eight of whom are living: John W., Nathan, George W., Ray, Ellen, Mollie (Stokes), Fanny (Hutsell) and Cora. Mr. Wheeler settled in Osage County in 1852, and after a short residence in Miller County came to Pulaski County, Mo., in 1868. He purchased his present farm of 139 acres in 1873, and soon after built his present large flouring mill. He is a Mason, a Democrat and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. He served for some time in the State Militia during the late war. His son, John W., whose name heads this sketch, received a common-school education, and in 1872 came to Pulaski County, where he was engaged in milling until 1875, when he engaged in farming. From 1878 to 1879 he clerked in a store in Hancock, Mo., and in 1881 re-engaged in milling, which occupation has received his attention ever since. He owns a good farm of eighty acres, with thirty acres under cultivation, all of which he has earned by his own industry and good management. He and wife, whose maiden name was Harriet Lipscomb, and whom he married in 1875, are the parents of five children: Minerva, Ollie, William, Luna and Mary. He is a Democrat, and his first presidential vote was cast for S. J. Tilden in 1876. Mrs. Wheeler is a daughter of Wade and Mary (Baker) Lipscomb, natives of Tennessee, who came to Missouri at a very early day. The father was a miller and distiller, and the following are the names of his children: Sarah (Keaton), Susannah (Clark), Amanda (Layman), Julia (Hutsell), John F. and Harriet (Mrs. Wheeler).