Jeremiah Wheelock was an American early industrial pioneer in the Blackstone Valley of Massachusetts, a region that incubated the early American industrial revolution.
10 Facts About Jerry Wheelock
1.
2.
Jerry Wheelock was a sixth generation descendant of the first Wheelock settler, Rev Ralph Wheelock.
3.
The Rev Ralph Jerry Wheelock of Dedham, MA who had been a contemporary of John Milton at Oxford University and who was a Puritan minister in the 1630s, had been the first to establish public education in America.
4.
Jerry was the youngest of eight in the Wheelock family at Uxbridge and was born just after the end of the Revolutionary War.
5.
At an early age Jerry Wheelock was "put out to learn a trade" as a maker of tubs, and pails.
6.
Jerry Wheelock is a 3rd great grandson of Ralph Wheelock.
7.
Jerry Wheelock then was employed with the newly formed Rivulet Manufacturing company, founded by Chandler Taft in North Uxbridge in 1814, and worked his way up to Superintendent.
8.
Jerry Wheelock later struck out on his own and manufactured his own machinery at Uxbridge until 1833.
9.
The woolen mill started by Daniel Day and Jerry Wheelock continues today, two centuries later, under the name of Berroco Inc a yarn distribution company, with headquarters for many years in the Elmdale section of Uxbridge, where Daniel and Jerry started the first woolen mill.
10.
Jerry Wheelock died at Uxbridge on October 10,1861, at the age of 77.