Some folks asked about Wheeler Avenue after our post about Dr. Edith Flower Wheeler. Wheeler Avenue was not named after her, but it was named after Benson H. Wheeler. Mr. Wheeler was born on January 19, 1849, in Pitcher, and in 1880, he married Carrie E. Weaver, also from Pitcher. They moved to Cortland not long after their marriage, and they lived on Adams Street (now Homer Avenue) in 1883. The 1888 map of Cortland shows B.H. Wheeler as owning a property that has two different houses on it, one house appears to face Adams Street, and the other looks to be their home on Wheeler Avenue. Perhaps they lived in the smaller house on Adams when they first arrived in Cortland and built a bigger house later.
I was unable to find much about Mr. Wheeler except that he was a farmer. However, his wife Carrie was a witness in the Gillette murder trial. Benson and Carrie Wheeler’s home was the boarding house where Grace Brown stayed in Cortland while she was working at the Gillette Skirt Factory, and this is where Chester Gillette would come to meet her. Both Carrie Wheeler and her daughter Olive were called to testify that they knew Grace and Chester. They verified that Chester visited Grace at 7 Wheeler Avenue regularly and that they often sat in the parlor talking or outside on the porch.
For anyone who is unfamiliar with the Gillette murder case, we have some books available for purchase at CCHS or you can watch Dr. Joseph Brownell’s talk about the topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI7JuVC7hKY… It is a sad tale. ~Tabitha
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