George Montague Wheeler

Background

George Montague Wheeler was born at Hopkinton, Massachussets, a descendant of George Wheeler who was in Concord, Massachussets, as early as 1638, and the son of John and Miriam P. (Daniels) Wheeler.

Education

On July 1, 1862, he was appointed a cadet at the United States Military Academy, nominally from the territory of Colorado, although his family was then residing at Hopkinton. Graduating on June 18, 1866, he was commissioned second lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers, and was employed on surveying duty in California and on the staff of the commanding general, Department of California, until 1871, meanwhile being promoted first lieutenant, March 7, 1867.

Career

In 1871 he was selected to take charge of the survey of the territory of the United States west of the 100th meridian, which was to prove the great work of his life, absorbing nearly all his energies until his retirement. The primary object of the survey was the topographic mapping of the country, which was still largely unexplored, but the scope of the work was eventually extended to include exhaustive investigation of geological, zo"logical, and ethnological matters. The field work continued from 1871 to 1879, involving fourteen trips of from three to eight and one half months each. Writing in 1883, Wheeler said: "The field trips were often attended by the greatest hardship, deprivation, exposure and fatigue, in varying and often unhealthy climates at latitudes from 31 N to 47 N and Altitudes from 200 ft. below sea level (in the deserts of Eastern Cala. Death Valley, Amargosa &c) to nearly 15, 000 ft. among the mountain peaks of the Sierra Madre (Cala) Sierra Nevada and Cascade Ranges" (manuscript in War Department files). As the work proceeded, partial accounts of one sort or another appeared in some forty volumes. The definitive Report upon United States Geographical Surveys West of the One Hundredth Meridian was published between 1875 and 1889 in seven volumes, one supplementary volume, one topographical atals, and one geological atlas. Wheeler was promoted to the rank of captain in 1879. The organization of which he was chief lost its identity in that year, being merged in the newly created Geological Survey, but he was occupied most of the time for the next nine years in completing reports and supervising publication. In 1881 he was commissioner of the United States at the third International Geographical Congress and Exhibition at Venice, upon which he published a report in 1885, and then spent some time in investigating governmental survey systems in Europe. Exposure and fatigue during his explorations had broken his health, and a retiring board which examined him in 1883, at his own request, found him permanently incapacitated for active service. No action was taken on its report at the time, however, and he was allowed to continue his work at his own discretion, working as much or as little as he felt able, until 1888. Then the five-year-old report of the board was at last approved, and he was placed on the retired list, June 15, 1888. By an act of Congress approved September 27, 1890, he was given the rank and pay of major from July 23, 1888, the date on which he would have been promoted if he had remained on the active list. He died in New York, where he had spent the last years of his life.

Achievements

• He was notable for being leader of the Wheeler Survey, one of the major surveys of the western United States in the late nineteenth century.

Connections

His wife was Lucy, daughter of James Blair and granddaughter of Francis P. Blair, 1791-1876.

Father:

John Wheeler

Mother:

Miriam P. (Daniels) Wheeler

Spouse:

Lucy