The End of Edward S. Wheat's Line

     

     Moses Wheat of England was among the first settlers of Concord, Massachusetts, arriving there in about 1695.  Moses along with his wife Tamzen Brooks, was the founder of the American branch of the family and they were fruitful, multiplied, and scattered far and wide.  In the summer of 1795, my line left Massachusetts and relocated to the Town of Phelps, New York where they began the back breaking work of clearing a homestead from the dense forest and undergrowth.  A grandson of those original Phelps pioneers, Benjamin F. Wheat, left New York in 1896 for Michigan.  It was there he met and married Mary Hermance, beginning a family of his own in Branch County.  Their daughter Luany was born there in 1840, followed in 1841 by a son, Edward S. Wheat.

   When the American Civil War erupted in 1861, Edward Wheat enlisted in the Union Army as a sergeant in the 1st Michigan Light Artillery, rapidly advancing through the ranks.  While stationed in Murfreesboro, Tennessee near war's end he met a local girl named Emma Spence.  Her father William Spence had been a resident of Murfreesboro for many years, but was born in Ireland, in the north I strongly suspect.  A few months after hostilities ended, Edward and Emma were married, beginning their new life there in Murfreesboro near her parents.  Had Emma possessed a crystal ball and caught a glimpse of the tragedies that lay in store, she likely would have declined Edward's proposal.

      I found at Google Books, a biographical album of the sort so popular in the late 19th century.  It contained a short biography about Edward and another about his father Benjamin and his early life in New York State, but what really caught my eye was the next to last sentence, "Edward S. Wheat came to his death by violence in the streets of Nashville, Tennessee, being shot on March 11, 1884."

     My mind raced with questions; who would have killed Edward and for what reason?  Foremost in my thoughts was the animosity that existed in the south towards the north after the war.  The book mentioned that after leaving the military Edward had been appointed Revenue Assessor and later, US Marshall for the Middle District of Tennessee.  None of those jobs would have endeared him to the locals.  The possibility that Edward was murdered by one of them seemed reinforced by the Freedman's Bureau records at Ancestry.  Among their papers was a report mentioning Edward once being threatened by an angry rebel with a loaded, cocked, pistol, "pointed in his face".  A newspaper at the Library of Congress site told a much different story however:

     Col. Edward S. Wheat was murdered by his father-in-law Col. William Spence in Nashville Tuesday morning at the corner of Church and College streets.  Spence was crossing the street behind Wheat and shot him in the back, the ball passing through the heart.  He then ran up to his victim placed the pistol at his side, and fired the second shot.  Wheat was about 43 years old and Spence 65.  The difficulty grew out of a disagreement about business transactions and had been of long standing.

     After picking my jaw up off the floor I began looking into this shocking crime.  I found Edward and his young family, along with his in-laws, had moved to Nashville after Edward was appointed US Marshal.  He and Emma were the parents of three boys, William F. born in 1868 died of typhoid fever in 1884, nine months after his father's murder; Edward S. Jr. was born in 1870 and passed away in 1892.  The youngest was Harry Elliott, born in 1873 who died in 1875 at age two from tuberculosis of the abdominal lymph glands contracted by drinking milk from an infected cow, not uncommon in those days before pasteurization.

     And what of William Spence?  He mounted an insanity defense but was found guilty of murder at his trial and sentenced, "to be hanged in the jail yard on the 18th of July".  His family sprang into action, petitioning Tennessee Governor Bate for leniency.  Bate reduced William's sentence to a life term, but the family filed another petition with the new governor of the state, the first signature on that document was that of Edward's widow Emma!  The second was his son Edward Jr.  Their petition was warmly received and on February 5, 1887 Governor Robert Taylor granted William a full pardon. Soon afterwards, William, his wife Matilda, and their daughter Emma Wheat along with her one surviving son, Edward Jr., all moved to Pensacola Florida.  William died there in November of 1892, followed by Matilda in 1894.

     As a young man, Edward Jr. became involved in the grain business, a fitting occupation for one bearing the Wheat surname.  He passed away in St. Louis at the age of 22, from gastroenteritis and heart failure, on the 14th of June in 1892.  His death came five months prior to that of his grandfather William's.  Edward's burial permit, issued in St. Louis, noted that his remains were transported to Nashville for interment in the family plot at Mount Olivet Cemetery in that city.  It should be noted, the dates for Harry Elliott Wheat are incorrect at Find A Grave as well as on his marker.  State death records have the right dates, and interment records of Mount Olivet show that Harry was buried there in October of 1875, then reinterred with his father when he was killed in 1884.  That may be the year the monument was erected and Harry's dates were not remembered correctly.

     I was about to post this blog when I decided to do one more newspaper search for Edward Jr.'s obituary in the St. Louis papers and was I in for a surprise!  The circumstances surrounding the death of the young grain merchant from a good family were not at all what I had believed them to be!

More tomorrow...