Nathaniel Wheeler (b. Watertown, Litchfield county., Connecticut, September 7, 1820; d. Bridgeport, December 31. 1893) was an American manufacturer and legislator. [1] He became a Senator in Connecticut under the Democrats.
The photographs of the Wheeler Mansion on this page are actually photographs of a PT Barnum Mansion that was located at Seaside Park in Bridgeport, CT at the same time period.
He was the son of David and Sarah (née De Forest) Wheeler and grandson of Deacon James and Mary (née Clark) Wheeler. The founder of his branch of the family, Moses Wheeler, born in Kent, England, was in New Haven, Conn., as early as 1641, and probably was one of the founders of that town. He removed, in 1648, to Stratford, Connecticut, where he carried on his trade of ship-carpenter. He also farmed, and kept the ferry across the Housatonic.
He became an extensive landholder and died in 1698, aged 100 years. Sarah De Forest was descended from a Huguenot family, of Avesnes, France, some of whose members fled to Leyden, Holland, to escape persecution. In 1636 Isaac, son of Jessen and Marie (née Du Cloux) De Forest, emigrated from Leyden to New Amsterdam, and there married Sarah Du Trieux, who bore him 14 children. One of them, David, settled at Stratford. David Wheeler, father of Nathaniel, was a carriage manufacturer. [1]
His son Nathaniel, after receiving a common school education, learned the trade, first taking up the ornamental part of the work. At the age of twenty-one he took charge of the whole establishment, to relieve his father, who had been carrying on a farm at the same time. He conducted the business successfully for about five years, and then began the manufacture of metallic articles, especially buckles and slides, using hand labor at first, but gradually introducing machinery.
In 1848 he formed a partnership with Messrs. Warren & Woodruff, manufacturers of the same kind of articles, and the firm erected a building for the business, of which Nathaniel Wheeler took entire charge. During a business trip to New York he saw the recently patented sewing machine of Allen B. Wilson, and contracting with the firm controlling the patent to build 500 of these machines, he engaged the services of Mr. Wilson as superintendent. [2]
The latter was admitted to the firm of Warren, Wheeler & Woodruff, which in 1851 was reorganized as Wheeler, Wilson & Co., and in October, 1853, as the Wheeler & Wilson Manufacturing Co., with a capital of $160,000. For lack of adequate facilities, the business having increased largely, the firm, in 1856, moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, occupying the old Jerome Clock Co. building, to which additions were made from time to time, until it covered about eight acres in 1899. Nathaniel Wheeler was made general manager on the organization of the company, and in 1855 was elected president, retaining his old office. [1]
Nearly $500,000 had been expended upon experiments toward the perfecting of the machines, and since 1850 more than 2,000,000 have been manufactured. Nathaniel Wheeler took an important part in forming the combination, in 1856, of the principal sewing machine companies, the Singer and the Grover & Baker having begun business about the same time as Wheeler & Wilson . [1]
He represented his district in the state legislature and Connecticut Senate as a Democrat in 1873 and 1874, [3] and was one of the commissioners for the building of the state capitol at Hartford. He was a director of the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroad and of the City National Bank, an incorporator of the People's Bank, vice-president of the board of trade and of the board of education in 1885-86. He favoured every project to benefit Bridgeport and was held in high esteem. [1]
Throughout his life, he received many honours and medals for his work at Wheeler & Wilson. The sewing machines of Wheeler & Wilson were exported abroad outside the United States as well. They were so renowned, that Nathaniel Wheeler received the imperial warrant from emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria as "Purveyor to the Imperial and Royal Court" (in German: k.u.k. Hoflieferant), keeping this title until his death. [4]
Nathaniel Wheeler was married twice: first, at Watertown, November 7, 1842, to Huldah Bradley, who bore him four children and died in 1857, leaving a son, Samuel, and a daughter, Ellen B., wife of Edward Harral; second, to Mary E. Crissey, who bore him four sons, two of whom, Archer and William Bishop, with their mother, survived. Nathaniel Wheeler died at his residence on Golden hill, Bridgeport, on December 31. 1893. [1]
A memorial fountain was constructed in 1912 in Bridgeport in his honour. The fountain is located at the intersection of Fairfield Avenue, John Street and Park Avenue and was assembled by Gutzon Borglum. After years of deterioration, the fountain was renovated in 2009-2010. [5]
Watertown is a town in Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States. The town is part of the Naugatuck Valley Planning Region. The population was 22,105 at the 2020 census. The ZIP Codes for Watertown are 06795 and 06779. It is a suburb of Waterbury. The urban center of the town is the Watertown census-designated place, with a population of 3,938 at the 2020 census.
Isaac Merritt Singer was an American inventor, actor, and businessman. He made important improvements in the design of the sewing machine and was the founder of what became one of the first American multi-national businesses, the Singer Sewing Machine Company.
Elias Howe Jr. was an American inventor best known for his creation of the modern lockstitch sewing machine.
Albert Augustus Pope was a Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel in the Union Army. He was an importer, promoter, and manufacturer of bicycles, and a manufacturer of automobiles.
Charles Ethan Billings (1834–1920) was an American mechanical engineer, inventor, superintendent, and businessman. He held various U.S. patents on hand tools, either assigned or licensed to the firm that he and Christopher M. Spencer cofounded, the Billings & Spencer Company. His name as patent holder is stamped on countless forged hand tools, many of which survive. Billings was an expert in drop forging and was an influential leader in the American system of manufacturing and its successor systems of mass production for firearms, sewing machines, hand tools, bicycles, and other goods. He served as president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1895 and 1896. The Billings & Spencer Company was both a machine tool builder and a manufacturer of hand tools made with its machine tools.
The Merrow Sewing Machine Company, best known for inventing the overlock sewing machine, is a manufacturer of sewing machines. After the explosion of his gunpowder mill in 1837, in 1838 J.M. Merrow built a knitting mill on the same site. The company developed crocheting machines for its own use and by 1887 evolved to design, build and market sewing machines exclusively. During its early decades it was organized as a partnership under various names: established in 1838 as Joseph M. Merrow & Sons by J. Makens Merrow, then Pitkin, Merrow, & Co., renamed Merrow Manufacturing Co. in 1857, then Merrow and Millard in 1863, J.B. Merrow and Sons in 1870, and incorporated as The Merrow Manufacturing Company in 1893. Originally all of its manufacturing was done at facilities in Merrow, Connecticut, and then in Hartford, Connecticut, after 1894. The company is currently based in Fall River, Massachusetts.
Pope Manufacturing Company was founded by Albert Augustus Pope around 1876 in Boston, Massachusetts, US and incorporated in Hartford, Connecticut in 1877. Manufacturing of bicycles began in 1878 in Hartford at the Weed Sewing Machine Company factory. Pope manufactured bicycles, motorcycles, and automobiles. From 1905 to 1913, Pope gradually consolidated manufacturing to the Westfield Mass plant. The main offices remained in Hartford. It ceased automobile production in 1915 and ceased motorcycle production in 1918. The company subsequently underwent a variety of changes in form, name and product lines through the intervening years. To this day, bicycles continue to be sold under the Columbia brand.
Henry Alonzo House was an American inventor who developed machinery and processes that have had a lasting impact on several industries.
Bönnigheim is a town in the German administrative district (Kreis) of Ludwigsburg which lies at the edge of the areas known as Stromberg and Zabergäu. The nearest large towns are Ludwigsburg and Heilbronn.
Allen Benjamin Wilson (1823–1888) was an American inventor famous for designing, building and patenting some of the first successful sewing machines. He invented both the vibrating and the rotating shuttle designs which, in turns, dominated all home lockstitch sewing machines. With various partners in the 19th century he manufactured reliable sewing machines using the latter shuttle type.
Wheeler & Wilson was an American company which produced sewing machines. The company was started as a partnership between Allen B. Wilson and Nathaniel Wheeler after Wheeler agreed to help Wilson mass-produce a sewing machine he designed. The two launched their enterprise in the early 1850s, and quickly gained widespread acclamation for their machines' designs. Both Wheeler and Wilson died in the late 19th century, resulting in the company's sale to the Singer Corporation. Shortly after, the Singer Corporation phased out Wheeler & Wilson's designs. The company sold a total of nearly 2,000,000 sewing machines during its existence.
Warren R. Briggs (1850–1933) was an American architect who worked in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
The rotary hook or rotating hook is a bobbin driver design used in lockstitch sewing machines since the 19th century. It triumphed over competing designs because it can run at higher speeds with less vibration. Rotary hooks and oscillating shuttles are the two most common bobbin drivers in use today.
The Sewing Machine Combination or the Sewing Machine Trust was the first patent pool in US history. It was formed by the "Albany Agreement" of 24 October 1856 and lasted until its last patent expired in 1877. It existed for the purpose of reducing the licensing and litigation overhead being imposed by the patent thicket known as the Sewing Machine War.
The Nathaniel Wheeler Memorial Fountain is located in Bridgeport, Connecticut at the intersection of Fairfield and Park avenues. The fountain was built in 1912–1913 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 4, 1985. The fountain consists of four elements: a central bronze figure of a mermaid rising out of a polished granite pool and three individually ornamented polished granite watering troughs at the angles of the triangular parcel of land raised above the street. The mermaid holds aloft a lamp in her right hand, and a baby in her left. Its tail is wrapped around two dolphins, and the faces of four babies appear in relief around the rim of the pool. The three surrounding troughs are each adorned with individualized figures.
Nathaniel Thayer II was an American financier, philanthropist, and the father of John Eliot Thayer II, an amateur ornithologist.
Arthur Canfield Wheeler was a two-term Republican mayor of Norwalk, Connecticut from 1895 to 1896. He was a manufacturer of straw hats for over thirty years.
Tyler Howe was an American inventor and manufacturer who developed the first box-spring bed.
Philo Clark Calhoun was an American industrialist, banker, and politician who served as president of the Fourth National Bank of New York.
The East Bridgeport Historic District encompasses one of the best-preserved 19th-century neighborhoods of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Bounded by Arctic Street, East Main Street, the railroad tracks, and the Pequonnock River, this area was a planned development of Bridgeport promoter P.T. Barnum and landowner William H. Noble. Its development prompted the significant growth of industry and economic activity east of the Pequonnock River. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
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