William Wheeler

Background

William Wheeler was born at Concord, Massachussets, the son of Edwin and Mary (Rice) Wheeler, and a descendant of George Wheeler who came from England to America about 1638.

Education

He received his early education in the public schools at Concord, and then entered the Massachusetts Agricultural College at Amherst, where he was a member of the first class (1871) to graduate from that institution.

Career

While at college he carried on considerable engineering work besides making an excellent scholastic record. He was first engaged upon railroad work in New York and Massachusetts, becoming resident engineer in charge of the Hardwick division of the Central Massachusetts Railroad in 1872. The following year he opened an office at Boston as a civil engineer and made surveys and plans for the Concord water works, which project was completed under his direction in 1874. During 1874-76, in partnership with his cousin Horace W. Blaisdell, he constructed several stone arch bridges over the Charles River, and reported upon railroad and water-supply projects in Massachusetts. In 1876 he entered into a contract with the Japanese government to serve for two years as professor of mathematics and civil engineering at the Imperial Agricultural College of Sapporo, Japan, started with the aid of President William S. Clark, of the Massachusetts Agricultural College and modeled upon that institution. After Clark's return to America in 1877, Wheeler became president of the college. His work in Japan was fundamentally important. In addition to his teaching duties, he planned and constructed harbor improvements, bridges, highways, and railroads, and founded a weather bureau and an astronomical observatory; he also aided in guiding proper building construction. During his last two years in Japan he was civil engineer of the Imperial Colonial Department. In recognition of his services the Emperor decorated him in 1924 with the Fifth Order of the Rising Sun. In 1880 he returned to the United States, established an office in Boston, and engaged in engineering. His earlier achievements included water-works projects at Concord, Watertown, and Braintree, Massachussets, and sewerage and other works at the Massachusetts state prison, Concord. Later, under his supervision water companies were organized and water systems built and operated in municipalities in the other New England states, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. He had considerable mechanical ingenuity, and from 1881 to 1883 was granted some fifteen patents, the most of them electric-light reflectors or appliances. In Concord, Wheeler gave much time to public service, serving on the water and sewer boards, the school committee, the board of health, and the municipal light board. He was a member of the library corporation for thirty-nine years, during twenty-eight of which he was president; for twenty-six years he was trustee of town donations. In 1917-19 he served in the state constitutional convention. For thirty-six years he was a director of the Middlesex Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Concord; he was also a trustee of the Middlesex Institution for Savings - and for a period, its president - and a director of the Concord National Bank. As a trustee of the Massachusetts Agricultural College for many years, he rendered valuable service to that institution.

Achievements

• He developed a wide consulting practice, and became a national authority with respect to water works.

Connections

In 1879 he married Fannie Eleanor Hubbard of Concord. They had no children.

Father:

Edwin Wheeler

Mother:

Mary (Rice) Wheeler