CHARLES FAY WHEELER.

Charles Fay Wheeler was born June 14, 1842, at Mexico, Oswego
county, New York; died at George Washington Hospital in Washington, D. C., March 5th, 1910, and was buried in Arlington Cemetery.

He graduated from the Academy at Mexico, near where he was born,
and enlisted in October 1861, as a private in Company B, Seventh Regiment of the New York (Black Horse) Cavalry; was mustered out in
March 31, 1862. He again enlisted August 20th, 1862, in Company F.
147th Regiment of New York Infantry, to serve three years but was
discharged March 21st, 1863, by reason of disability.

Unable to work, he lived in the woods, fields and marshes for a year
or more and with Gray's Manual of Botany studied plants and to a
great extent regained his health. In 1866-67 he spent one year in the
Medical Department of the University of Michigan. He then settled
in Hubbardston and for 22 years conducted a drug and book store,
spending much of his time among his beloved plants. On March 4th,
1869, he was married to Catherine T. Holbrook of Oakham, Mass.

During all these years as a merchant he continued his study of the
local flora in which he became very proficient, devoting much time also
to reading valuable botanical works.

In the spring of 1889, Mr. Wheeler with Professor L. H. Bailey, then
Professor of Horticulture at the Agricultural College, two students and
the writer, the party spent two weeks in a botanical trip, passing across
the state from Harrisville in Alcona county to Frankfort in Benzie
county. During his stay in Hubbardston, he had collected a herbarium
of over 7,000 plants which later became the property of the Agricultural
College. In 1889, he was elected instructor at this College, taking
studies enabling him to graduate in 1891 with the degree of B. S.,
which College granted him the honorary degree of D. Sc. in May 1907.
He became assistant Professor, in all spending eleven years before accepting a position in the United States Department of Agriculture where
he soon found his place in identifying plants for several departments
of the Government in Washington.

While at the Agricultural College, he spent much time in collecting
plants for the herbarium in which he was intensely interested. Previously, in company with Erwin F. Smith, they published a Flora of

CHARLES FAY WHEELER. [Portrait] 

15
Michigan in 1881 and later with Dr. W. J. Beal another edition of the
Flora was published, in 1904 in the Report of the State Board of Agriculture.

At the college he was active in organizing and sustaining a botanical
club and never tired of arousing interest and assisting students in his
favorite pursuit. He was well read and with a retentive memory was
able to impart much information on a great variety of topics. He had
friends everywhere, hosts of them. He was one of the organizers of the
State Academy of Science in 1892 and was chairman of the Section in
Botany in 1902.

Dr. Wheeler leaves a wife and two daughters, Mrs. Dick J. Crosby of
Washington and Mrs. George N. Eastman of California.
DR. W. J. BEAL.