Charles Augustus Wheaton
Encyclopedia
Charles Augustus Wheaton (1809 – 1882) was a businessman and major figure in the central New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 state abolitionist movement and Underground Railroad
Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...

, as well as other progressive
Progressivism
Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...

 causes. He was one of the founders of the First Congregational Church
Congregational church
Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....

 in Syracuse
Syracuse, New York
Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...

, which took an abolitionist stand, and was part of the Vigilance Committee that formed in 1850 to resist the Fugitive Slave Law.

In 1860 he moved to Northfield, Minnesota
Northfield, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 17,147 people, 4,909 households, and 3,210 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,452.2 people per square mile . There were 5,119 housing units at an average density of 732.1 per square mile...

, where he was one of two men who donated the land to found the Carleton College
Carleton College
Carleton College is an independent non-sectarian, coeducational, liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota, USA. The college enrolls 1,958 undergraduate students, and employs 198 full-time faculty members. In 2012 U.S...

 campus. There he served with the Minnesota legislature. The father of a total of 17 children, he had an active family life. He later became the editor of two local newspapers.

Early life and education

Charles Augustus Wheaton was born in 1 Jul 1809 in Amenia, New York, the son of Augustus Wheaton, a farmer and drover, and his wife. He had two brothers. The parents purchased a 410 acres (1.7 km²) farm in the town of Pompey
Pompey, New York
Pompey is a town in the southeast part of Onondaga County, New York, United States. The population was 6,159 at the 2000 census. The town was named after the Roman general and political leader Pompey by a late 18th-century clerk interested in the Classics in the new federal republic.- History :The...

 in Onondaga County
Onondaga County, New York
Onondaga County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 467,026. The county seat is Syracuse.Onondaga County is part of the Syracuse, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area....

 in 1807. They migrated there from Dutchess County
Dutchess County, New York
Dutchess County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York, in the state's Mid-Hudson Region of the Hudson Valley. The 2010 census lists the population as 297,488...

 with their family in 1810. They had followed three of the elder Wheaton's sisters: Lydia, Sylvia and Loraine, who had already moved to Pompey with their families, part of a westward migration of many in the state in the years after the American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...

. Charles attended the Pompey Academy, a well-regarded boys' school.

Charles Wheaton’s eldest brother Orlin J. became a farmer and drover like their father. Their brother Horace
Horace Wheaton
Horace Wheaton was a United States Representative from New York. Born in New Milford, Litchfield County, Connecticut, he moved with his parents to Pompey, Onondaga County, New York in 1810. He received a limited schooling, was graduated from Pompey Academy, engaged in mercantile pursuits, and was...

 served as a Representative from New York in the US Congress and later became the fourth mayor of the city of Syracuse
Syracuse, New York
Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...

. He also became a partner with Charles in his future hardware business in Syracuse.

Marriage and family

Wheaton married Ellen Douglas Birdseye on June 24, 1834, at the First Presbyterian Church in Syracuse, where they were both members for a time. They had been neighbors in Pompey. He was 25 and she was 18.

She was the second of twelve children of Electa (née Beebee) and Victory Birdseye
Victory Birdseye
Victory Birdseye was a U.S. Representative from New York.-Early life and education:Born in Cornwall, Connecticut, Birdseye attended the public schools there. He graduated from Williams College in 1804. Afterward he studied law by reading with a law firm...

. The father was one of Onondaga County’s leading politicians. Birdseye practiced law and served two terms in Congress. He was postmaster of Pompey Hill for 22 years, district attorney
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...

 of Onondaga County for 14 years, and held numerous other political offices. The original Birdseye House is now part of the Onondaga County Freedom Trail. A descendant founded Birds Eye Frozen Foods
Birds Eye
__FORCETOC__Birds Eye is an international brand of frozen foods owned by Pinnacle Foods in North America and by private equity group Permira in Europe....

.

Charles and Ellen Wheaton had twelve children together, including Cornelia (b. 1835), Lucia, Henry Birdseye, and Charles A. Wheaton (b. 1853).

Ellen was well educated, having attended a girls seminary in Cortland
Cortland, New York
Cortland is a city in Cortland County, New York, USA. As of the 2000 census, the city had a population of 18,740. It is the county seat of Cortland County.The City of Cortland, near the west border of the county, is surrounded by the Town of Cortlandville....

 and music school in the state capital of Albany
Albany, New York
Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...

. She is reported to have owned the first piano in Pompey. She is best-known for a notable diary she kept from 1850 to 1858, detailing her life as a wife and mother of a large family. The Wheaton family privately published The Diary of Ellen Birdseye Wheaton in 1923. Selections from the diary were reprinted in the Syracuse Post-Standard newspaper in March 2002. Birdseye Wheaton died in 1858 at age 42 from tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

.

Progressive
Progressivism
Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...

 views and activism, particularly relating to abolition and women’s rights, were an important part of the Wheatons' family life. They sent some of their children to the private school in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

 run by Theodore Weld and Angelina Weld Grimké
Angelina Weld Grimke
Angelina Weld Grimké was an African-American journalist, teacher, playwright and poet who was part of the Harlem Renaissance and was one of the first African-American women to have a play performed.- Biography :...

, advocates for these progressive causes.

After the death of Ellen in 1858 and moving to join friends in Northfield, Minnesota
Northfield, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 17,147 people, 4,909 households, and 3,210 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,452.2 people per square mile . There were 5,119 housing units at an average density of 732.1 per square mile...

 in 1860, Wheaton married the widow Martha Elizabeth (Archibald) Wagener in 1861. She had also moved from central New York, migrating with her parents after losing her husband and their three sons to illness. The senior Archibalds owned flour mills in Dundas
Dundas, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 547 people, 213 households, and 146 families residing in the city. The population density was 356.4 people per square mile . There were 229 housing units at an average density of 149.2 per square mile . The racial makeup of the city was 97.26% White, 1.28%...

.

Charles and Mary Wheaton had five children: Frederick (1862–1881), Robert (1863–1898), Allan (1866–1934), Edith (1868–1950) and Annabel (1870–1946). They also reared together some of the younger of Wheaton’s 12 children from his first marriage.

Career

As a young man, Charles clerked in the general store owned by his brother-in-law Moses Seymour Marsh. Retail businesses were a growing part of the economy.

In 1835, soon after the birth of their first child, the Wheaton family moved to Syracuse, where Charles went into the hardware
Hardware
Hardware is a general term for equipment such as keys, locks, hinges, latches, handles, wire, chains, plumbing supplies, tools, utensils, cutlery and machine parts. Household hardware is typically sold in hardware stores....

 business. Wheaton and a variety of partners, including his brother Horace, built a prosperous company. Over the course of 20 years, the Wheatons lived in seven houses, moving to larger homes as family and fortune grew. None of the Wheaton homes in Syracuse are believed to exist.

In 1849, the Wheatons’ close friends and fellow abolitionists, John
John W. North
John Wesley North was a 19th century pioneer American statesman of national reputation. He is the founder of the cities of Northfield, Minnesota, and of Riverside, California, where John W. North High School and the John W. North Water Treatment Plant are named after him...

 and Anna Loomis North, left Syracuse to move to Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

. Ellen noted their departure in her diary, “[John] thinks very highly of the climate and resources in Minnesota, and says it is rapidly filling up with an Eastern population.” The Norths were to play an important role in Wheaton’s life after Ellen’s early death in 1858.

When his hardware store burned in 1851, Wheaton built C.A. Wheaton & Co.—housed in the city’s grandest mercantile block, a four-story building overlooking the Erie Canal
Erie Canal
The Erie Canal is a waterway in New York that runs about from Albany, New York, on the Hudson River to Buffalo, New York, at Lake Erie, completing a navigable water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. The canal contains 36 locks and encompasses a total elevation differential of...

 and Clinton Square. In 1852, the Wheatons were at the peak of their wealth. They moved to Fayette Park, one of the city’s most fashionable neighborhoods.

Wheaton sold his share of the hardware business in 1853. He also sold the Wheaton Block for $112,000, the largest sale to that date in Syracuse. He invested heavily in a printing press
Printing press
A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...

 foundry. He also invested in a project to build a railroad from South Carolina
South Carolina
South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...

 to Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...

. In 1854, a banking crisis and an economic depression struck New York. By 1855, the family would be broke.

Ellen died suddenly at age 42 on December 17, 1858, the day after the wedding of their eldest daughter Cornelia. Her funeral was a Swedenborgian
Swedenborgian
A Swedenborgian is the doctrines, beliefs, and practices of the Church of the New Jerusalem, and is an adjective describing a person or an organization that understands the Bible through the theological writings of Emanuel Swedenborg....

 service and she was buried in Hilltop Cemetery in Pompey, New York.

Abolitionist and political activities

The Wheatons were part of a large network of abolitionists in Syracuse and knew John Brown
John Brown (abolitionist)
John Brown was an American revolutionary abolitionist, who in the 1850s advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery in the United States. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre during which five men were killed, in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas, and made his name in the...

 personally. Their anti-slavery activities began as early as 1838, when Wheaton helped found the First Congregational Church
Congregational church
Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....

 in Syracuse. He and other pro-abolition supporters left the First Presbyterian Church, which would not take a position against slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

, to found the new congregation. Many of its members worked as activists.

Between 1839 and 1847, the Wheatons operated their house as a station on Underground Railroad
Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...

, helping escaped slaves travel to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. His public reputation as an abolitionist was such that the family seamstress, a Mrs. MacManus, was said to have reported to a census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...

 taker that Wheaton was “president of the Underground Railroad.”

In a notable case in 1839, Syracuse abolitionists helped the slave Harriet Powell to escape from her masters, a family from Mississippi who were staying at a local hotel. Officials suspected Charles Wheaton of being involved. Local law enforcement officers searched the Wheaton’s home for Powell without success. She made it to Canada.

Wheaton was one of 600 people in Syracuse who signed a call for a meeting at the Syracuse City Hall on May 16, 1850, to discuss the proposed Compromise of 1850
Compromise of 1850
The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five bills, passed in September 1850, which defused a four-year confrontation between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican-American War...

. Participants supported the admission of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 as a free state, opposed territorial governments for New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

 and Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

 that did not prohibit slavery, opposed any fugitive slave law, and supported abolition of slavery in the national capital, stating, “We should rejoice to witness the removal of this stain [slavery in Washington, D.C.] upon the national character.” Despite much publicly stated opposition in the North, the southern slave states had enough votes in the US Congress to pass the Fugitive Slave Act.

The Law required all citizens to support capturing escaped slaves and returning them to their masters, even if found in northern states that prohibited slavery. US Marshals were to enforce the law. Its passage aroused the anti-slavery movement in Syracuse. On October 4, 1850, a biracial group chaired by A.H. Hovey, mayor of Syracuse, appointed a Vigilance Committee
Vigilance committee
A vigilance committee was a group formed of private citizens to administer law and order where they considered governmental structures to be inadequate. The term is commonly associated with the frontier areas of the American West in the mid-19th century, where groups attacked cattle rustlers and...

 of thirteen men. They included Wheaton, Lyman Clary, Vivus W. Smith, Charles B. Sedgwick, Hiram Putnam, E.W. Leavenworth, Abner Bates, George Barnes, P.H. Agan, J.W. Loguen, minister of the AME Zion Church; John Wilkinson, R.R. Raymond, and John Thomas. They intended to resist the Fugitive Slave Law and sent copies of their resolution to the newspaper, political representatives, and Congress.

On October 15, Wheaton spoke to a meeting at the Congregational Church to make “common cause, in view of various arrests rumored to have been made, or to be made under the Fugitive Slave act, and on charges of Treason.” The meeting was led by men of both races: Enoch Marks, white, and George B. Vashon, African American. The group was committed to nonviolent action, and members pledged “our fortunes and our sacred honor, to stand by those individuals on whom this hand of government may fall; that we will help to bear with them any pecuniary losses to which they may be subjected, and manifest in every way we can, our sympathy for them, and show that we suffer as those who are bound with them.” Other speakers included the Reverend R.R. Raymond, the Rev. Samuel J. May, William H. Burleigh, Lyman Clary and George Barnes.

On October 1, 1851, Wheaton was part of a biracial group who rescued William “Jerry” Henry, an escaped slave apprehended and jailed in Syracuse. That evening, a crowd of two to three thousand people gathered outside the jail. The crowd eventually rescued and freed Henry. At the time, Wheaton was with fellow abolitionist Judge Charles Sedgwick to prepare a kidnapping complaint against the agent sent to catch Henry.

When the federal government investigated the case, it traced the file used to cut Henry’s fetters
Fetters
Legcuffs, shackles, footcuffs, fetters or leg irons are a kind of physical restraint used on the feet or ankles to allow walking but prevent running and kicking. The term "fetter" shares a root with the word "foot"....

 to the Wheaton house. The federal government tried to find witnesses against the Wheatons and others. Ellen Wheaton estimated that perhaps half of Syracuse residents supported the rescue. She wrote, “Charles confidently expected to be arrested, but has not been as yet. The proceedings of the U.S. District Attorney are as secret as possible—and everything wears the appearance of injustice and knavery.”

Newspapers across the state denounced the overtaking of the jail and freeing the prisoner. Some 677 Syracuse-area residents signed a petition of protest against the action. After four days of hiding Henry, abolitionists disguised him in women’s clothing and took him to Oswego
Oswego, New York
Oswego is a city in Oswego County, New York, United States. The population was 18,142 at the 2010 census. Oswego is located on Lake Ontario in north-central New York and promotes itself as "The Port City of Central New York"...

 on Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south by the American state of New York. Ontario, Canada's most populous province, was named for the lake. In the Wyandot language, ontarío means...

. There he boarded a ship to Kingston, Ontario
Kingston, Ontario
Kingston, Ontario is a Canadian city located in Eastern Ontario where the St. Lawrence River flows out of Lake Ontario. Originally a First Nations settlement called "Katarowki," , growing European exploration in the 17th Century made it an important trading post...

 and freedom.

A federal grand jury
Grand jury
A grand jury is a type of jury that determines whether a criminal indictment will issue. Currently, only the United States retains grand juries, although some other common law jurisdictions formerly employed them, and most other jurisdictions employ some other type of preliminary hearing...

 indicted Wheaton and twelve other men—nine European Americans and four African Americans— for the action at the jail and Henry’s escape, but Wheaton was never arrested or tried. The event became known as the Jerry Rescue
Jerry Rescue
The Jerry Rescue, on October 1, 1851, involved the daring, public rescue of a fugitive slave who had been arrested the same day, in Syracuse, New York, during the anti-slavery Liberty Party's state convention...

.

Wheaton ran for Canal Commissioner
Erie Canal Commission
The New York State Legislature appointed in 1810 a Commission to Explore a Route for a Canal to Lake Erie, and Report which became known as the Erie Canal Commission...

 in 1848 on the Free Soil
Free Soil Party
The Free Soil Party was a short-lived political party in the United States active in the 1848 and 1852 presidential elections, and in some state elections. It was a third party and a single-issue party that largely appealed to and drew its greatest strength from New York State. The party leadership...

 ticket, and in 1852 and 1854 on the Free Democratic ticket. He was defeated each time. He also ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Syracuse on the Temperance
Temperance movement
A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...

 ticket in 1852.

Minnesota (1860-1882)

Wheaton suffered after the death of his wife Ellen in 1858. His friends the Norths wrote from Minnesota in 1859, urging him to join them in Northfield
Northfield, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 17,147 people, 4,909 households, and 3,210 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,452.2 people per square mile . There were 5,119 housing units at an average density of 732.1 per square mile...

, which they had founded. The following year, Wheaton moved there with many of his 12 children, joining other Syracuse families who had migrated to join the North family. When John North had earlier suffered financial failure in the Panic of 1857
Panic of 1857
The Panic of 1857 was a financial panic in the United States caused by the declining international economy and over-expansion of the domestic economy. Indeed, because of the interconnectedness of the world economy by the time of the 1850s, the financial crisis which began in the autumn of 1857 was...

, Wheaton purchased his interests in the local flour mill and other properties—an act that may have economically saved the town. For some time, Wheaton’s Northfield Mills produced “choice family flour.”

After his second marriage in 1861, Wheaton and his large family first took over the second floor of the American House Hotel, built by John North in 1857. (The hotel became the first building of Northfield College, later renamed Carleton College
Carleton College
Carleton College is an independent non-sectarian, coeducational, liberal arts college in Northfield, Minnesota, USA. The college enrolls 1,958 undergraduate students, and employs 198 full-time faculty members. In 2012 U.S...

.) The family built a new house of Greek Revival style at 405 Washington Street, where they moved in 1868. The house was divided and moved in 1938. Both portions of the original house still stand in Northfield. The main house is about five blocks south of its original location and the “L” portion is on 9th Street West.

In 1864 Wheaton sold the flour mill to members of the Jesse Ames family. Ames and the Archibalds perfected flour milling processes that produced what was recognized as the best flour in the nation with higher yields at the mills. The Ames Mill was the basis of the Malt-O-Meal
Malt-O-Meal
The Malt-O-Meal Company is a privately owned American corporation that produces breakfast cereals. Its corporate headquarters are in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It employs 1,400 people and had estimated sales in 2008 of $548 million.-History:...

 company.

In 1866, Wheaton was elected to the House of the Minnesota State Legislature, where he served one term, from 1867-1968. That same year, Wheaton and Charles M. Goodsell each gave a 10 acres (40,468.6 m²) plot of land to the fledgling Northfield College to establish the college campus just north of the main part of town.

Wheaton later became editor of the Northfield Standard newspaper and later the Rice County Journal, long considered one of the first and finest weekly newspapers published in the Midwest in the 1800s. He regularly wrote a column, “Sunday’s Doings,” that reviewed the sermons of local ministers. He also reported on congregations, noting the attendance (or lack) of prominent church members. To prepare his column, Wheaton visited up to three local churches on any given Sunday.

When Wheaton died in 1882 at the age of 72, the bank and businesses of Northfield closed for the funeral as a sign of respect. A tribute of the time read, “In Northfield his editorial pen was ever at the disposal of any good cause, and he was a leader in all progressive causes.”

External links

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