The Civil War in North Carolina



Reminiscences and Memoirs of North Carolina and Eminent North Carolinians

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MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR,
COLONEL JOHN HILL WHEELER,
Of Hertford County, North Carolina.

BORN AUGUST 2, 1806, DIED DECEMBER 7, 1882,

BY HON. JOSEPH S. FOWLER, EX-SENATOR FROM TENNESSEE.


                         "Exegi monumentum oere perennius,
                         Regalique situ pyramidum altius;
                         Quod non imber edax. non Aquilo impotens
                         Possit diruere, aut innumerabilis
                         Annorum series, et fuga temporum."

--HOR. CAR., XXX.

        FROM Moore's "Historical Sketches of Hertford County," we learn the following:

        Among the early citizens of the village of Murfreesboro, in this county, was John Wheeler. He was of an ancient family, long seated around New York. In the latter end of the 17th century, under a grant of land from Charles II., Joseph Wheeler emigrated from England, and settled in Newark, New Jersey. Like William Penn, he was the son of a gallant naval officer. Sir Francis Wheeler, an English admiral, was his father, and the grant of land from the Crown was in reward for faithful services. He and his young wife had followed soon after the conquest of the New Netherlands by the Duke of York, son of Charles I., afterwards James II.

        To them was born, in 1718, their son Ephraim Wheeler, to whom, and his wife Mary, the first American John Wheeler was born in the year 1744. John had bestowed upon him the best advantages of education--he was educated as a physician. When the Revolutionary war came on, he entered the army under General Montgomery, and accompanied him in the perilous and ill-fated campaign to Quebec, and was in the battle (December 31, 1775,) in which that gallant officer fell. In Toner's "Reminiscences of the Medical Men of the Revolution" he is prominently mentioned. Aaron Burr served also in this campaign. Dr. Wheeler accompanied General Greene in his southern campaign, and was with him in the hard fought and glorious victory at Eutaw Springs, September 8, 1781, and until the close of the war. Pleased with the genial climate of the South, he settled near Murfreesboro and brought his family with him. His wife Elizabeth Longworth, was the neice of Aaron Ogden, afterwards the Governor of New Jersey, and Senator in Congress. He lived near Murfreesboro for years, in the practice of his profession, in which he had great skill and much success.

        His death occurred on October 14, 1814, and he lies buried in Northampton County, near


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