Harriet Page Wheeler Young, daughter of Oliver Wheeler and his wife Hannah Ashby, was a native of Hillsborough, Hillsborough county, New Hampshire, and was born September 7, 1803. She was the eldest of five children. The ancestors of the Wheeler family were from Wales, whence they emigrated to America five generations before Harriet was born, settling on Massachusetts Bay.

A year or two after her [Harriet’s] birth her parents moved from Hillsborough, her father’s birthplace, to Salem, Massachusetts, the birthplace of her mother. There Harriet was reared to womanhood. She was kept at school from five to ten years of age, after which whe went to work in one of the Salem factories, where she learned to spin flax and wool, and became an expert. Her mother taught her to weave, and she was also an accomplished milliner and an excellent cook.