Alfred Wheeler, P. O., Miami. Is one of the old pioneers of Saline county. He was born in Garrard county, Kentucky, August 30, 1807. When he was only five years old his father, Thomas Wheeler, was killed at Dudley’s defeat in the war of 1812. In 1819 his mother moved to Saline county with her family, her eldest daughter and husband, Mr. and Mrs. Wolfskill, having settled here two years previously. They settled in Jefferson township, where his mother afterward married a second time, to William McMahan, another old pioneer. His mother died in 1838. Mr. Wheeler has lived in Saline county since 1819, as it has also been the home of his three brothers and two sisters, Samuel, Wilson, and Stephen, Mrs. Susan Wolfskill and Mrs. Anna Galbraith. Stephen and both sisters are now dead. When about twenty years of age, Mr. Wheeler bought the improvements on a tract of land, now known as the Booker farm, and remained there about three years. He was married July 9, 1830, to Miss Ruth Perry, who was born in Cooper’s fort in 1812, and was the first white child born of American parents west of St. Charles. In the fall of this same year, 1830, he entered a farm in the Miami bottom, upon which he erected a cabin, and moved into it with his young wife. Subsequently he entered and purchased the 500 acre farm one mile and a half east of Miami, upon which he now resides, and upon which he moved in 1843. In 1848 both he and Mrs. Wheeler united with the Pinnacle Baptist Church, and when it broke up carried their membership to the Miami Baptist Church. They have raised four sons and two daughters to maturity. Humphrey died at the age of twenty-three, just as he was entering upon his studies for the ministry of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Amos A. is a well-known and leading physician of Miami. Alfred L., the youngest, is living on the old homestead, and takes care of the “old folks.” William H. lives near by, and divides his time between farming and teaching. Mrs. Cyrena Casebolt, widow of Peter Casebolt, and Mrs. Betsy Dick, wife of William B. Dick, both live in the same community. Mr. Wheeler’s grandfather, Benjamin, was born in Virginia, and was a soldier in the revolutionary war; he afterward moved to Kentucky, and died there, in Garrard county.
