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Oliver Wheeler I (1722-1804)
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Our 6GGP Oliver Wheeler I and
Abigail Woods Wheeler
married in Acton on 10 October 1747. Typically of their time and
place, he was about 25 and she not yet 21. In the same year,
Oliver’s father
Jonathan
deeded to him the homestead that is now identified as
250 Acton Street (“OW” on the map).
Oliver and Abigail are
buried about a mile
east and south of here, down this road.
According to our best current information, 6GGF Oliver
Wheeler I (then aged 54) did not take part in the opening
hostilities of the American Revolution on the Nineteenth of
April, 1775, in
Lexington and
Concord.
His son, 5GGF Oliver II (27),
however, apparently did.
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In an interesting cultural vignette, Phalen reports that
“…in February of 1760 the town voted to pay
certain sums to Oliver Wheeler and Amos Lamson for the
support of Lydia R.… and her
child…”
1 Unclear what
personal or civic role may have placed Oliver in line for
this duty. Phalen is interested in the incident mainly as
evidence that Puritan society was softening in
its response to bastardy.
1Harold R. Phalen, History of the Town of Acton
(Middlesex Printing Co. Cambridge, Massachusetts:1954), p. 49.