WILLIAM J. WHEELER of Section 7, Carson Township, was born in Decatur County, Indiana, May 3, 1837, the son of Josephus Wheeler, a native of Kentucky, and the son of Thomas Wheeler, a native of Virginia. The Wheelers were early settlers in Kentucky, and Josephus was reared in Nicholas County. He was sixteen years of age when he came to Decatur County, Indiana, with his parents, when that place was then a wilderness. Our subject's mother was Rebecca (Lock) Wheeler, a native of Kentucky. They had twelve children, of whom five sons and three daughters grew up to maturity. The family next moved to Howard County, Indiana, in 1866, and there resided until their death. The father died at the advanced age of seventy-four years, and the mother at seventy-one or seventy-two. The father was a farmer all his life, and in his political principles he was first a Whig and afterward a Republican.

W.J. Wheeler was reared on an Indiana farm, and in his youth he was engaged in chopping, grubbing and clearing the land. He taught school three terms, teaching the first term in his own district. At the time of the great Rebellion he left the farm, at Lincoln's call for 300,000 more men, for the army, and enlisted in the Seventh Indiana Regiment, which was among the first that went out as a recruit, August 28, 1861, and returned with the regiment to the Army of the Potomac. He was in the battles of Bull Run, Cedar Mountain and several other slight skirmishes. He was honorably discharged in December 1862 and returned to Decatur County, Indiana.

He was married March 11, 1864, in Carlisle, the county seat of Nicholas County, Kentucky to Miss H.T. Clayton, a native of that county and a daughter of William M. Clayton, Sr., who was a soldier and was wounded in the War of 1812; she was a sister of Hon. B.F. Clayton of Macedonia. After his marriage Mr. Wheeler resided in Decatur County until 1869, when he moved to southwestern Missouri, Jasper County, near Carthage, where he lived five years, engaged in farming and general work. He then returned to Indiana and resided three years. He then purchased his present farm of seventy acres, which was then wild land, and has since added to it until he now has 140 acres, or one fourth of Section 7. He is engaged in general farming and stock raising. Politically Mr. Wheeler is a Republican, his first vote being cast for Fremont. He is a member of Robert Provard Post of Carson. Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler have been identified with the Christian Church for many years.