Xenophon Wheeler Had Fine Home With Cannon Out Front On The East Terrace

Xenophon Wheeler had a fine home with a wing running off to one side and a cannon out front on the East Terrace. He was still another of the Union officers who wound up on Cameron Hill.

Wheeler was born in Ohio in 1835 and went to Oberlin College for three years. His parents were natives of Vermont. He graduated from Yale, then studied law in New York City.

When the Civil War broke out, he enlisted in October 1861 with Ohio troops. He was seriously wounded in the first battle of Winchester, Va., on March 23, 1862. He spent 14 weeks in a hospital.

Wheeler married Amanda Elizabeth Knowlton of Utica, Ohio, on July 14, 1863. He and his young bride moved to Chattanooga in 1865, and he entered the law firm of Stanley, Henderson and Wheeler. Afterwards, he was a law partner with W.S. Marshall for many years.

In 1879, Xenophon Wheeler was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee. He served as the fourth president of the Tennessee Bar Association in 1884 and 1885. He was also involved in many local endeavors, including helping to organize the Chattanooga Savings Bank.

Wheeler was one of the organizers of the city's first public library and was its first president. He was a trustee of the University of Tennessee from 1892 to 1913. His own valuable personal library, that was said to be the finest in the city, was lost in a fire at his home on East Terrace in March 1888.   

When his first wife died in 1887, Wheeler three years later married Mrs. Elizabeth Whitman Brown of San Francisco.

Xenophon Wheeler was still living on the East Terrace when he died Jan. 31, 1914. His widow lived in the house for some time, then it was apparently torn down.

Wheeler children included Anna who married Winchester Dickerson, Ethel who married Frederick Joseph Waddell, and Shelton King Wheeler who married Grace Murphey.