Nathaniel Wheeler

Nathaniel Wheeler (b. Watertown, Litchfield county., Connecticut, Sept. 7, 1820; d. Bridgeport, Dec. 31. 1893) was an American manufacturer and legislator.

He was the son of David and Sarah (née De Forest) Wheeler and grandson of Deacon James and Mary (née Clark) Wheeler. The founder of his branch of the family, Moses Wheeler, born in Kent, England, was in New Haven, Conn., as early as 1641, and probably was one of the founders of that town. He removed, in 1648, to Stratford, Connecticut, where he carried on his trade of ship-carpenter. He also farmed, and kept the ferry across the Housatonic. He became an extensive landholder and died in 1698, aged 100 years. Sarah De Forest was descended from a Huguenot family, of Avesnes, France, some of whose members fled to Leyden, Holland, to escape persecution. In 1636 Isaac, son of Jessen and Marie (née Du Cloux) De Forest, emigrated from Leyden to New Amsterdam, and there married Sarah Du Trieux, who bore him 14 children. One of them, David, settled at Stratford. David Wheeler, father of Nathaniel, was a carriage manufacturer.

His son Nathaniel, after receiving a common school education, learned the trade, first taking up the ornamental part of the work. At the age of twenty-one he took charge of the whole establishment, to relieve his father, who had been carrying on a farm at the same time. He conducted the business successfully for about five years, and then began the manufacture of metallic articles, especially buckles and slides, using hand labor at first, but gradually introducing machinery. In 1848 he formed a partnership with Messrs. Warren & Woodruff, manufacturers of the same kind of articles, and the firm erected a building for the business, of which Nathaniel Wheeler took entire charge. During a business trip to New York he saw the recently patented sewing machine of Allen B. Wilson, and contracting with the firm controlling the patent to build 500 of these machines, he engaged the services of Mr. Wilson as superintendent. The latter was admitted to the firm of Warren, Wheeler & Woodruff, which in 1851 was reorganized as Wheeler, Wilson & Co., and in October, 1853, as the Wheeler & Wilson Manufacturing Co., with a capital of $160,000. For lack of adequate facilities, the business having increased largely, the firm, in 1856, moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, occupying the old Jerome Clock Co. building, to which additions were made from time to time, until it covered about eight acres in 1899. Nathaniel Wheeler was made general manager on the organization of the company, and in 1855 was elected president, retaining his old office.

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