The papers of the Leonard H. Wheeler family arrived in three different accessions. Boxes 1-8 arrived in 1954 and 1964; Boxes 9-11 and Oversize Folders 1-3 arrived in 1999 and 2000-2002; Box 12 and Oversize Folder 4 arrived in 2016. The papers have been arranged into seven series: Family History; Photographs; Correspondence; Writings; Other Collected Materials; Library; and Harriet (Hattie) Wheeler Papers.
The FAMILY HISTORY series contains background material on the Wheeler family and their activities that were compiled by relatives and by staff at the Madeline Island Historic Site. This includes clippings, biographies, certificates, genealogies, and a family history by Amanda J. Holmes, “Shadows on the Land: the Protestant Missionaries in Odanah, Wisconsin, 1841-1866.” Also includes a lengthy article in the Daily Cleveland Herald documenting the 1864 marriage of Rhoda Spicer of Ellsworth, Ohio, to Leonard Wheeler Jr. in the Wisconsin “wilderness.”
The PHOTOGRAPHS series include several 19th and early 20th century views of Madeline Island, and the mission buildings and the Ojibwa Reservation at Odanah as well as portraits of the Wheeler and Phillips families. The originals are housed at the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison and photocopies of these images have been made available at the Ashland Area Research Center.
The CORRESPONDENCE series consists of family letters, and professional communication in relation to their missionary work.
Family correspondence consists of the correspondence of Leonard Hemenway Wheeler, his wife Harriet Wood Wheeler, and their children. The children that figure most prominently in the correspondence are Leonard Jr., Julia, William H., Charles Eugene, and Harriet. Topics covered in the personal correspondence include family news, religious homilies, a smallpox epidemic, and of travel on Great Lakes steamers, to Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. Of note is an account of the mobilization for the Civil War written from Lowell, Massachusetts one week after the firing on Fort Sumter.
A long series of letters between Hattie and her brother Charles Eugene illuminates the difficulty experienced by an educated single woman in supporting herself and her family's frustration with her financial situation.
Correspondence with the Wheelers' parents and other relatives in Vermont and Massachusetts is also included. Also includes letters to Rhoda Spicer prior to her marriage to Leonard Wheeler Jr., and letters from the family of Rosa Phillips Wheeler, the wife of Charles Eugene Wheeler.
Professional correspondence documents their activities among the Ojibwa Indians at Madeline Island and Odanah. Included is communication with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Boston, the Congregational missionary board that sent the Presbyterian Wheelers to Wisconsin. Most of these letters are from S.B. Treat of the Mission Board. Correspondence with individual missionaries in the Midwest includes exchanges with Frederick Ayers, William T. Boutwell, A.M. Fitch, James M. Gordon, Richard M. Smith, and Asaph Whittlesey, but, most prominently, Rev. Sherman Hall of Crow Wing, Minnesota Territory. The salutation “Dear Brother” can easily identify the correspondence with missionary colleagues. Most of this correspondence relates to the management, successes, and problems of the missionary enterprise.
Wheeler correspondence with officials at the Bureau of Indian Affairs and other government agencies includes exchanges with General L.H. (L.E.?) Webb, agent to the Ojibwa of Lake Superior. There are also letters from tribal elders to federal officials transcribed by the Wheelers. This correspondence concerns the maintenance of the boarding school, in part supported by the federal government. There are also references about the proper education of Native American children (i.e., academic or vocational subjects); problems with illegal liquor sales; the 1862 Sioux Uprising in Minnesota; and federal treaty obligations.
Also includes early letters of Leonard Wheeler while he was still a student at Andover Theological Seminary, and a February 16, 1867 letter explaining how Rev. Wheeler's health problems led to the family's decision to relocate in Beloit.
A letter book kept by the Wheelers covers the years 1842 to 1844. It contains both personal and professional correspondence. Unfortunately, the legibility of this volume is very poor.
Many letters, family and professional, have typed or handwritten transcriptions. There are a few letters in the collection for which no original exists. John Nelson Davidson probably gathered these letters for his book, In Unnamed Wisconsin (Milwaukee, 1895). Of special interest is an incomplete account addressed to Mrs. Wheeler about a trip to the upper Saint Croix River in 1829.
The WRITINGS series includes diaries, reminiscences and an autobiography, essays, fiction, sermons, and speeches. Rev. Leonard H. Wheeler's diaries consist of brief notes from 1835, but a more complete journal covers the years 1843 and 1844. The diary of R.W. Wheeler contains entries for 1895 only. Also includes the partial autobiography by Harriet Wheeler's father, Samuel Wood, of Lowell, Massachusetts, personal recollections of Charles E. Wheeler, and a recollection of early Beloit by William H. Wheeler.
Hattie Wheeler's fiction writings include manuscripts and published works, as well as a novel-length work about the Black Hawk War serialized in the Beloit Daily News after her death. Her writings focus on Native American topics, and her younger years at La Pointe and Odanah. With the research material for her book is a file pertaining to the Warren family at La Pointe, as well as a portrait of Mary Warren English, a descendant of Lyman Warren and Michael Cadotte. See also writings under the Harriet (Hattie) Wheeler Papers series.
Also present are scattered business papers of the Wheelers' sons; sermons by Rev. Leonard H. Wheeler, Leonard Jr., and other family members, a partial script of unknown provenance for a pageant featuring the Wheelers, a windmill (invented by the Wheelers), and the Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) Indians.
OTHER COLLECTED MATERIALS
Rev. Wheeler invented and patented a windmill in 1867, which was originally designed for use by the Ojibwa, and is briefly documented in the collection through correspondence and a patent. After the family moved to Beloit, Wisconsin, Fairbanks, Morse, and Company manufactured his design under the brand name “Eclipse Wind Engine.” (A photograph of the windmill is included in PH 2705).
The Manual Labor Boarding School for the Education of Indian Youth, which the Wheelers operated at Odanah, and other issues concerning Native Americans are documented by reports, agency records, and a transcription of the 1854 treaty with the Ojibwa together with an 1861 petition, apparently drafted by Rev. Wheeler, requesting that the federal government honor its treaty obligations. The agency financial records for 1866 include itemized disbursements for supplies, and a listing of agency employees, their occupations and salaries. Leonard Wheeler served for a time as a supervisor of La Pointe County (now Bayfield County), and as a result there some government documents, including an 1856 Madeline Island inquest and papers of Robert Boyd, justice of the peace.
Also includes documents concerning the difficulty experienced by Leonard Wheeler Jr. with the sale of his Eclipse windmill sales business, other business papers and maps concerning William H. Wheeler's real estate developments in Beloit and South Beloit, and an incomplete Ojibwa/English lexicon of unknown authorship.
The LIBRARY series contains over twenty books owned by the Wheelers from Sunset Lodge in Omena, Michigan, donated by Amanda Holmes. The library is comprised generally of books with religious themes. Of particular interest are five books written in the Ojibwa language, including a spelling book and religious titles. All of these titles have been cataloged by author and title in the WHS catalog.
The HARRIET (HATTIE) WHEELER PAPERS series contains the papers of Leonard Wheeler and Harriet Wood Wheeler's daughter Harriet, who was also a third grade teacher. Most of Harriet's writing focuses on Native American issues and topics resulting from a youth spent in La Pointe and Odanah, Wisconsin. The family later moved to Beloit where Harriet taught school and wrote articles, stories and plays. The records include articles of a book published in serial form in the Beloit Daily News, correspondence, certificates, notes and parts of stories that are titled and untitled, a photograph of Sarah or Harriet Wheeler holding a bear cub, a list of royalties, and portions of stories, plays and notes with some titles (with an index to the titles in folder 6). The correspondence is to and from Harriet with her family, friends, editors, lawyers, and a publisher. Other writings and correspondence by and from Hattie are included in other series.
