The Wheeler family had been established for three generations in Temple, NH when John Wheeler, our benefactor and seventh son of Nathan Wheeler and Rachel Cummings, moved to what is now Merrimack where he established a farm in the village of Reed’s Ferry and married Marrieta Parker, daughter of Nathan Parker and Mary McQuestion, two prominent villagers of that era.
Merrimack, historically consisted of four small villages — Reeds Ferry in the north, Souhegan Village in the center, Thornton’s Ferry along the Merrimack River, and South Merrimack situated on Route 101A, the old route of the Nashua and Wilton Railroad. The villages of Reed’s Ferry and Thornton’s Ferry acquired their names from ferries that connected them across the Merrimack River to Litchfield, NH.
Professor William Russell, an alumnus of Glasgow University and celebrated elocutionist, had for some time desired to establish a local teacher’s college known in that era as a “normal school”. Thus in 1849 Robert McGaw, Nathan Parker, Elkanah P. Parker, Matthew P. Nichols and Nathan Parker, Jr, incorporated the Merrimack Normal Institute “for the instruction of youth of both sexes in useful literature, and to qualify such of them as intend to become teachers of common schools for their appropriate duties.”
On August 27, 1849 Professor Russell opened the normal school enrolling sixty-five students the first term. Boarding was managed by John and Marrietta Wheeler under whose administration the building was “filled to its utmost capacity there being at times sixty roomers and eighty table borders.”
The Merrimack Normal School was located at 10 Depot Street. Later it was renamed the McGaw Institute and became the town’s first high school after the institute closed in 1949. The site has since been occupied by Merrimack PTA Kindergarten.
In 1889 John Wheeler, shortly before his death and in a gesture that further expressed his dedication to the community, established a trust to erect and maintain a building for the benefit of the people of Reed’s Ferry which forever bears his name, Wheeler Memorial Chapel. Learn more about the charter that established the Wheeler Memorial Chapel Trust here.