Albert Wheelon, born on March 14, 1844, in Elizabethtown, Ontario, Canada, was a Civil War veteran and the register of the U.S. Land Office in Pierre, South Dakota. He moved to McHenry County, Illinois, in 1857 and enlisted in the Ninety-fifth Illinois Volunteer Infantry in 1862. After the war, he farmed in Iowa and held public office as sheriff of Clay County. He later engaged in mining in the Black Hills and Colorado before settling in Pierre in 1889, where he entered the real estate business. Wheelon held various public offices and remained active in the Republican party and several fraternal organizations. He married three times and had several children.
Albert Wheelon, an honored veteran of the Civil War, and at the present time incumbent of the office of register of the United States land office in Pierre, being also engaged in the real-estate business, is a native of Elizabethtown, Ontario, Canada, where he was born on the 14th of March, 1844, being a scion of sterling old families and a son of Charles and Mary (Marshall) Wheelon, natives respectively of Canada and New York state. The father of the subject was engaged in farming in Canada until 1857, when he removed with his family to McHenry County, Illinois, becoming a pioneer of that state, where he was engaged in farming until his death in 1888, at the age of sixty-eight years; his wife is still living. They became the parents of eight children, of whom six are living. The subject was reared to maturity in Illinois, where he secured his educational discipline in the common schools of McHenry County, and he continued to assist his father until there came the call to a higher duty, when the integrity of the Union was placed in jeopardy through armed rebellion. In 1862, at the age of eighteen years, Mr. Wheelon enlisted as a private in Company E, Ninety-fifth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, with which he proceeded to the front, the regiment being assigned to the Army of the Tennessee. He participated in many important battles and was wounded in the siege of Vicksburg, and was incapacitated for further service in the field, being attached to the headquarters of the regiment thereafter until the expiration of his term of service, three years, when he received his honorable discharge, having acted as postmaster and clerk at headquarters after being wounded, until the close of the war, receiving his discharge at Springfield, Illinois, in August, 1865. He continues to take a deep interest in his old comrades in arms and perpetuates the memories of his army days by retaining membership in Sully Post No. 13, Grand Army of the Republic, in Pierre, of which he is past commander.
After the close of the war Mr. Wheelon passed one year in Illinois and then, in the autumn of 1866, went to Iowa, engaging in agricultural pursuits in Butler and Clay counties and being numbered among the pioneers of that state. In 1868 he was elected sheriff of Clay County, an office which he acceptably filled for two terms, and he continued to reside in the Hawkeye state until 1877, when he disposed of his interests there and came to the Black Hills district of Dakota, where he engaged in prospecting and in contracting. A year later he went to the mining regions of Colorado, where he continued to reside until 1889, having been there engaged in mining. In the year mentioned he took up his abode in Pierre and established himself in the real-estate business, in which he has since continued, having built up a prosperous enterprise. In 1892 he was appointed deputy auditor of the County, holding this office four years, and in 1896 he was elected County auditor, in which he served four years, having been re-elected for a second term in 1898. On the 1st of January, 1900, President McKinley conferred upon him the appointment of register of the United States land office in Pierre, and he has since continued in tenure of this position. He has always been an active worker in the cause of the Republican party, with which he identified himself upon attaining his legal majority, having cast his first presidential vote for U. S. Grant. Fraternally, he belongs to Lodge No. 444, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and to the Modern Woodmen of America.
On the 22nd of February, 1866, Mr. Wheelon was united in marriage to Miss Susan Weeks, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Arvice A. Weeks, at that time residents of Woodstock, Illinois, and of this union were born two children: Dr. Charles A., who is a successful physician and surgeon in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Nellie, who is the wife of John D. Buroughs, of Denver, being employed as cashier in the offices of the Union Pacific Railroad Company. On the 17th day of May, 1886, the subject married Miss Gertrude E. Farrington, of Newark, New York, who died on the 10th of August, 1897, having borne one child, which died in infancy, while in 1895 she and her husband adopted a daughter, Myrna Rebecca. On the 21st of June, 1900, Mr. Wheelon consummated a third marriage, being then united to Miss Minnie Weischedel, of El Reno, Oklahoma, and they have one child, Lena Minnie.
Source: Robinson, Doane, History of South Dakota: together with mention of Citizens of South Dakota, [Logansport? IN] : B. F. Bowen, 1904.