John H. Wheeler: Historian and Diplomat

John Hill Wheeler was born in eighteen oh six in Murfreesboro, North Carolina, and went on to hold one of the most varied careers the state produced. He served as superintendent of the Charlotte branch of the United States Mint under President Andrew Jackson, then as state treasurer, and in eighteen fifty-one published Historical Sketches of North Carolina, a major history of the state. President Franklin Pierce sent him to Nicaragua as United States minister in the eighteen fifties, where he made the fateful decision to officially recognize the government of William Walker, an American filibusterer who had seized the country. Wheeler returned home to write more history and is remembered today as the man who tried to put North Carolina's past on paper before most of it was lost.