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The sister, fourth great-aunt Clarissa Caroline, as we now know, died youngish (~1810-~1841), but not before marrying Caleb Sawyer, pioneering in Michigan, and producing four children. We’ve just recently (2009) unearthed an installment on her story. Until our third visit to Freedom at the end of May, 2009, my only evidence for her existence was Whitney’s report, doubtless derived from interviews with Harriet. As unreliable a witness/storyteller as Grandma Harriet has shown herself in other respects, I’d maintained skepticism about Clarissa Caroline, especially given some of the arrant silliness in the IGI (which solemnly calls her “Seyanus Caroline).” As will appear, however, we now have solid documentation on Grandma’s little sister.
Don’t get me wrong: there’s nothing shameful about being Welsh. But the old-world Wheelers whence sprang those of Concord and Acton, Harriet’s ancestors, emphatically weren’t. They were Bedfordshire folk. The map nearby will illustrate how very un-Welsh they were, in their remote English origins.

In fact, Harriet’s immigrant Wheeler ancestor came six generations earlier: her fourth great-grandfather Richard Wheeler of Cranfield, Bedfordshire, England, who had nine siblings (Elizabeth, Timothy, George, Susanna, John, Joseph, Abiah, Ephraim, and Thomas): no Abraham, please note, and no Simon, and no Oliver. Sorry, DUP dears, but there was no romantic triad of Wheeler brothers that braved the deep, great or otherwise.
Harriet’s ancestor Abraham was the oldest of eight children of Richard Wheeler and Sarah Prescott: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Deborah, Zebediah, Sarah, Elizabeth, and Samuel. No Simon. No Oliver.

Abraham’s son Jonathan Wheeler, Harriet’s great-great grandfather, had siblings Sarah, Abigail StGeorge, and Samuel, plus two who died young, apparently unnamed.

The first Oliver in her Wheeler line was her great-grandfather, Oliver Wheeler I. HE had a brother named Simon, but they were fourth-generation Americans, not intrepid immigrants.

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