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PHOTO ALBUM
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SPOUSE: Martha
Marriage: unknown
Place: <Connecticut>
Birth Date:
between 1760 and 1770
Birth Place: <Connecticut>
Death Date:
unknown
Burial: <Ovid, Seneca, New York>
CHILDREN
Simon
D. Wheeler
possible siblings
John C. Wheeler age 20-30 in 1830
OCCUPATION(S): elected
as fence-viewer in 1800.
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FAMILY
Father: unknown
Mother:
unknown
SIBLINGS
possible-James C. Wheeler
age 60-70 in 1830
INDEX TO HISTORY
Research Ideas |
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION:
Ovid, New York, 1789-1889, an early history, compiled by Wayne E. Morrison [Ovid, New York: W.
E. Morrison & Co, 1980]
p. 144,147
From 1795 to 1806 the population increased rapidly.....Simon
and James Wheeler, with their father; and Benjamin Whaldron
also on the same lot near Sheldrake.
p. 162 Map- The Town of Ovid, Seneca Co. NY 1858
This map shows lot No.23 near Sheldrake, H[oratio] Palmer lives
on this lot at the shore of Cayuga Lake.
Levi Palmer and children of Horatio Palmer are buried in the
New Sheldrake Cemetery.
p. 160-191
The first town meeting was held on April
1, 1794, at the house Abraham Covert....the following officers
were chosen to wit:......Supervisor, Town Clerk, Assessors, Overseers
of the Poor, Commissioners of Highways, Constable, Fence-viewers.
.....The Town Minute Book, embracing the years 1794 ubtil 1860
has been preserved, and contains besides the names of elected
town officers, a list of slaveholders, ear markings for animals,
descriptions of newly laid out highways, locations of pounds
etc. The list of the town officers, with spellings retained
as found upon the pages of the original minute book, follows
verbatim, viz.....
1800
.......John VanTuyl, John Simpson, Aaron Miller, Jacob Smith,
Grover Smith, Phineas Clark, Joseph Thomas, Nathaniel Osgood,
Nicholas Huff, and Simon Wheeler Fence Viewers;
Joseph Wilson, Leonard Wilkin, Grover Smith and Simon Wheeler,
Pound Masters;
1807
.....Simeon Wheeler [among 56 other men] Overseers of
Highways
1824
.....Simon Wheeler [among 31 other men] Commissioners
of Highways
Our Vanishing Landscape by Eric Sloane [New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1955]
p. 32
Not long ago an important job in
every American town was that of the fence-viewer. There
is nothing for fence-viewers to do today, yet many towns still
elect them and pay them for their office. Whether it is done
with a Yankee sense of humor or not, the election of fence-viewers
in Vermont is still a celebrated custom.
Fence-viewers decided the necessity
and the sufficiency of all the fences in their neighborhood.
They settled disputes between landowners, and they were liable
(by fine) for the neglect of fences within their jurisdiction.
Nowadays this strange office is ususally bestowed on deserving
citizens as a prctical joke, but not so long ago, that plug hat
and frock coat ot the New England fence-viewer was a very official
uniform.
The fence viewer also had his deputies
and assistants, two of which carried a Gunter's chain for measuring
acreage and fence mileage. A Gunter's chain is a linked measuring-device
sixty-six feet long, including handles on both ends. It was invented
in 1620 by Edmund Gunter, and English mathmetician: all road
and land measurements since his day were shown on maps in chains
or divisions of the chain. |
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