Wheeler, Daniel

Wheeler, Daniel a distinguished member of the Society of Friends, was born in London, England, Nov. 27, 1771. Early in life he served in both the navy and the army. Having become a Christian, when not far from twenty-five years of age, he joined the Society of Friends. Some years after this, he abandoned a very lucrative part of the business in which he was engaged, that he might devote himself to the work to which, by the Spirit of God, he believed himself called. He became an accredited minister of the Society of Friends in 1816. In 1817 the emperor of Russia, in order to carry out a cherished plan for draining and cultivating the marshes surrounding St. Petersburg, secured the services of Mr. Wheeler as manager of the enterprise. While faithfully discharging his duties in the secular business to which he had been called, he was also faithful to his higher Master, and preached the Gospel with all simplicity and fidelity, not only to the humble and lowly, but also to the higher in authority in. Russia. He remained in St. Petersburg until 1832, when he felt impressed that it was his duty to go as a missionary among the islands of the Pacific, where a rich blessing attended his labors. After several years spent in missionary work in the Pacific, he returned to England Here he remained until 1838, when he came to the United States, where he continued nine months, rendering such service as he could to the cause of Christ, and then went back once more to his native land During a second voyage to the United States he contracted a disease which proved fatal; and he died soon after landing at New York, Feb. 6,1840. See Memoir (Phila. 1870). (J. C. S.)