Thursday, January 1, 2015

Horace Wheeler~Timbuctoo

This telegraph key and receiver was used between 1860 and 1870 by Mrs. Horace Niles Wheeler at Timbuctoo California.  Horace and Margaret (Havens) Wheeler spent nearly 20 years there mining for gold.  She used this device to communicate with her husband, Horace N. Wheeler (My great, great grandfather) at the office of a water company ten miles away.  Mrs. Wheeler became quite proficient at it's use.
This is the actual box on which the accompanying telegraph equipment was mounted.  It is basically untouched and the original pencil marks used to install the set can still be seen after a little over 150 years!

2 comments:

  1. Hello, Steven

    I just found your blog via a post I got to somehow (smiles) from Wikitree. Look forward to devouring your information. I'm relatively new to the genealogy fanaticism. And hoping all the ties I've gotten via Family Search, wikitree, Ancestry are real. It is exciting to find (if true) that I am a 16th generation American.

    Look forward to 'meeting you' ...

    I have a Wheeler facebook page ... I haven't compared our lineage yet ...

    The oldest I got back to via Ancestry.com several years ago was to John William, born in 1642 ... thus my page is named after him.

    Please visit and say hi to the limited number of cousins I have so far met.

    https://www.facebook.com/groups/477543889362176

    Regards,
    R. Mac Wheeler

    ReplyDelete