Lewis Downing, the son of a wheelwright in Lexington, MA, became a world renown maker of coaches. His story, taken from the liner notes of a recording by The Shaw Brothers entitled "The Ballad of the Concord Coach" is reproduced below:
"The story of the Concord Coach is one of the great romances in American history. It began with the love of a lad for a lass and evolved into one of the major technological innovations in the development of transportation. Born in Lexington, Mass, June 23, 1792, Lewis Downing learned the wheelwright trade from his father and became highly skilled in the use of woodworking tools. At the age of 21, he traveled to New Hampshire to see his fiancee, Lucy Wheelock, who was visiting an aunt in Concord. He decided to stay and, before long established himself in the wagon manufacturing business. By 1825, Concord had become the hub of northern New England's stage transportation. It was, therefore, natural for Downing to perceive the need for a better stage coach for the multitudes of travelers and volume of mail contracts stretching forever away from the coach. He met this challenge with the help of J. Stephens Abbot and after 1828 the firm bearing the names of these two gentlemen blazed a trail around the world with the finest of travel facilities the Concord Coach. 'No American product ever gained a wider patronage, ever gave a better service or redounded more magnificently to the credit of its native state than the Concord Coach. The name Abbot-Downing on such a vehicle not only meant that the eye of its maker had never left it from its inception to its delivery, but that out of the paint pots and design books in his factory there emerged a thing of such splendor that it required no other trademark to give it a world-reputation for almost a full century.'"
From liner notes of The Ballad of the Concord Coach by the Shaw Brothers, as given by The Owls Head Transporation Museum website, http://www.ohtm.org/index.html, Owls Head, ME, Apr 2001.
_Artemas WHEELOCK ___+
| (1801 - 1871)
_Lorenzo Don WHEELOCK _|
| (1820 - 1879) |
| |_Rachel RENOLDS _____
| (1802 - 1866)
|
|--Charles D. WHEELOCK
|
| _____________________
| |
|_Ruth C. _____ ________|
|
|_____________________
_Delorma Brooks WHEELOCK _+
| (1818 - 1896) m 1852
_Arthur Newhall WHEELOCK _|
| (1853 - 1941) m 1887 |
| |_Mary Sophia NEWHALL _____
| (1824 - 1900) m 1852
|
|--Dorothy WHEELOCK
|
| __________________________
| |
|_Kate Dudley JOHNSON _____|
(1862 - 1936) m 1887 |
|__________________________
Dorothy married Norman Dole. They had children: Norman, Jr., Janet, and Charley.
(Src: "The Wheelock Family of Calais, VT", Marcus W. Waite, 1940)
Joseph's ancestry is not know for certain. His Holliston marriage record states that he was from Milford. Joseph Wheelock, s. Seth Wheelock and Susanna Jerauld of Medfield, was born in 1802 - but according to the "History of Medfield", by Tilden, this family moved to Warwick, and so is probably a different Joseph.
_Alfred E. WHEELOCK ____+
| (1846 - 1906) m 1877
_Alfred WHEELOCK ____|
| |
| |_Mary Evangeline KNAPP _
| (1846 - 1907) m 1877
|
|--Leo WHEELOCK
|
| ________________________
| |
|_____________________|
|
|________________________
Letter from Anna Wheelock-Niemela
_Ezra WHEELOCK ______+
| (1762 - ....) m 1787
_Ezra WHEELOCK ______|
| (1787 - 1841) m 1809|
| |_Vashti PUTNAM ______
| m 1787
|
|--Lucy WHEELOCK
| (1809 - 1883)
| _____________________
| |
|_Hannah CROXFORD ____|
m 1809 |
|_____________________
_Joseph WHEELOCK ______+
| (1798 - 1879) m 1818
_Jerome Slater WHEELOCK _|
| (1823 - 1908) m 1847 |
| |_Anna Fuller CHAPPELL _+
| (1799 - 1893) m 1818
|
|--William WHEELOCK
| (1859 - 1872)
| _______________________
| |
|_Fannie J. HOWELL _______|
(1826 - 1909) m 1847 |
|_______________________