On July 18 I published a post about a 1777 New Hampshire arrest warrant. Deputy Sheriff Solomon Wheeler had signed the return: he arrested a suspected counterfeiter, searched the man’s house, and forwarded him to Exeter. The warrant was signed by Meshech Weare, Josiah Bartlett, and Ebenezer Thompson. I called it the warrant in hand and connected it to my ancestor Solomon Wheeler of Westmoreland.
One day of record work proved that identification wrong.
The deputy sheriff is Solomon Wheeler of Kingston, Rockingham County. My ancestor is Solomon Wheeler of Westmoreland, Cheshire County. Same name, opposite sides of New Hampshire, definitively two men.
Solomon Wheeler of Kingston#
The Kingston Solomon Wheeler leaves a dense, unbroken record in Rockingham County from 1772 to at least 1810.
In 1772 he was named to a commission dividing the Benjamin Choate estate, described as “Solomon Wheeler, and Simmons Secomb, yeomen, all of Kingston.” His farm bounded the Choate land on “Scotland rode.” (NHSP 36:297-300)
In 1776 he signed the Association Test at Kingston, on the same list as Josiah Bartlett. (NHSP 30:76-77)
On April 22-23, 1777, as deputy sheriff, he arrested Colonel Stephen Holland of Londonderry on the counterfeiting warrant signed by Weare, Bartlett, and Ebenezer Thompson. His signed return is on the verso. (The Morgan Library and Museum, MA 552.10)
Also in June 1777, the Committee of Safety authorized him to purchase 1,000 bushels of corn and grain for the State. His accounts from that work were settled between 1785 and 1792. (NHSP 8:579-580, 587, 606; 20:172; 21:78, 184-185; 22:681)
On June 15, 1781, he signed a return of Continental soldiers as selectman of Kingstown, alongside Jacob Webster. (NHSP 16:709)
On October 11, 1783, the Committee of Safety addressed him as “Solomon Wheeler, Deputy Sheriff” in an order about the town of Salem’s muster return. (NHSP 10:615-616)
Also in 1783, he executed a warrant issued at Kingstown by Josiah Bartlett, Justice of the Peace. (Gilder Lehrman Collection, GLC00450)
In 1784 he was appointed Justice of the Peace for Rockingham County: “Solomon Wheeler, Esqr, Kingstown.” He was renominated in 1789. (NHSP 20:264; 21:744)
He served as Representative for Kingston in the New Hampshire legislature in 1786 and 1788. (NHSP 20:610; 21:292)
In 1790 he appeared in the federal census at Kingston, Rockingham County (household 1-2-3), on the same page as Rev. Elihu Thayer and Gov. Josiah Bartlett.
The Rockingham County Registry of Deeds carries twenty-eight index entries in his name from 1765 to 1810, including grants from the towns of Hawke (1777, Book 162 Page 8) and Sandown (1783, Book 162 Page 9).
Every one of those records is Kingston or Rockingham County. None of it moves.
Solomon Wheeler of Westmoreland#
My Solomon Wheeler was born February 22, 1746/7 at Shrewsbury, Worcester County, Massachusetts, son of Cyrus and Lois (Wheelock) Wheeler. (Ward, History of the Town of Shrewsbury [1847], 472-473; Wheeler Family in America [1914], entry 357, p. 56)
He married Zipporah Harrington of Grafton on August 26, 1771. The marriage is recorded in both towns: Vital Records of Shrewsbury, pp. 230 and 163; Vital Records of Grafton, pp. 303 and 222. Zipporah was born February 20, 1748/9 at Grafton, twin daughter of Isaac and Miriam (Eager) Harrington. (VR Grafton p. 67)
Their twins Moses and Zipporah were born at Shrewsbury on March 19, 1772. Their son Aaron was baptized there March 27, 1774. (VR Shrewsbury p. 108; Ward p. 473)
He removed to Westmoreland, Cheshire County, New Hampshire around 1780. (Ward wrote “removed, sup. to Vermont”; the Wheeler genealogy says “He removed to Westmoreland, N.H.”)
In 1790 he appeared in the federal census at Westmoreland, Cheshire County (household 3-5-3), the right size for a family of nine or more children.
His son Barnard Wheeler was born at Westmoreland on December 6, 1788, the ninth child, father Solomon Wheeler of Westmoreland, mother Zipporah. (Certified NH birth transcript, 1906, Westmoreland town clerk) Barnard is my direct ancestor.
His daughter Zipporah married Daniel Carlisle at Westmoreland on December 17, 1795. (History of Westmoreland, 1976)
Solomon Wheeler of Westmoreland died August 5, 1822. Zipporah died February 5, 1831. (Wheeler Family in America, entry 357)
Why they are definitively two men#
1. Simultaneous documented presence in different places. In 1771-1774, my Solomon was marrying and baptizing children in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. At the same time, the Kingston Solomon was already established as a Kingston landholder serving on a probate commission (1772). That overlap runs for decades.
2. Both men appear in the 1790 census, the same year, in different counties. One is at Kingston, Rockingham County. One is at Westmoreland, Cheshire County. That alone settles the question.
3. The Kingston man never left. His Rockingham County record runs without interruption from 1772 to 1810: probate commission, Association Test, deputy sheriff, grain procurement agent, selectman, Justice of the Peace, state representative, and deeds through 1810. He was still transacting Kingston land two decades after my Solomon had settled his family 90 miles west in Westmoreland.
4. The marriage record cuts the other way. My Solomon’s 1771 marriage to Zipporah Harrington is a Massachusetts record, documented in two Worcester County towns. No New Hampshire record ties any Zipporah to the Kingston Solomon.
5. A service record once attached to my Solomon dissolves on inspection. Ancestry and WikiTree carry a July 9, 1776 New Hampshire muster (Capt. David Quinby’s company, Col. Wingate’s regiment) under my ancestor’s name. That company was raised from Col. Josiah Bartlett’s Kingston-area regiment. (NHSP 14:340-343) The 1781 selectman return places that soldier’s counterpart in Kingstown. It is the Kingston man, auto-matched onto my ancestor’s profile.
6. My Solomon has no documented Massachusetts service. Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War, the definitive compilation, contains no Solomon Wheeler entry at all. The Wheeler run skips from Simon to Thomas.
What this means, and what I am looking at next#
The warrant no longer connects to my line. The patriot search moves to the generation above Solomon, to his father-in-law, and to the families his children married into.
Barnard Wheeler, born 1788, is too young to have served. The candidates to check are:
Isaac Harrington of Grafton and Shrewsbury, Zipporah’s father, died at Shrewsbury June 1, 1782, alive through nearly the entire war and of the right generation. His service record is the next thing I will check.
Cyrus Wheeler of Shrewsbury, Solomon’s father, died February 19, 1782, aged 65. Too old for militia service, but Shrewsbury war records (committees, war taxes, supply assessments) may still yield a qualifying entry.
Solomon himself may yet qualify through civil service. If he reached Westmoreland before September 1783, payment of war taxes or participation in town support roles could count. The Westmoreland town records for 1780-1783 are unexamined.
John Pierce of Swanzey, New Hampshire, father of Barnard’s wife Susanna Pierce, is another candidate line to check.
None of those are established patriots. They are names on a list of records I have not yet pulled.
The Morgan warrant is still a magnificent document and now belongs to the fully documented story of Solomon Wheeler of Kingston: a deputy sheriff, selectman, Justice of the Peace, and legislator of Revolutionary New Hampshire. The research that took him away from my tree gave him his own.
Sources#
- New Hampshire Provincial and State Papers (NHSP), volumes as cited. Available on archive.org.
- Ward, History of the Town of Shrewsbury (1847), pp. 472-473.
- Wheeler Family in America (1914), entry 357, p. 56.
- Vital Records of Shrewsbury, pp. 230, 163, 108.
- Vital Records of Grafton, pp. 303, 222, 67.
- History of Westmoreland (1976).
- Massachusetts Soldiers and Sailors of the Revolutionary War.
- The Morgan Library and Museum, MA 552.10.
- Gilder Lehrman Collection, GLC00450.
- Certified NH birth transcript, 1906, Westmoreland town clerk.
- NHSP 14:340-343 (Quinby’s company muster).
Update, July 20, 2026. The search for Solomon’s real service succeeded the following day. Town records from Marlborough, Vermont, show Solomon Wheeler elected Collector at the town’s first recorded meeting, May 8, 1775, nineteen days after Lexington. The full evidence is in Nineteen Days After Lexington: Finding Solomon Wheeler’s Real Revolution.
Previous posts in this series:
- Finally A Wheeler — January 4, 2026
- The Deputy Sheriff Question — January 5, 2026
- The Warrant in Hand — July 18, 2026