In some countries it was upon a frame shaped like St Andrew's Cross that the sufferer was stretched. The punishment was abolished in France at the Revolution. It was employed in Germany as late as 1827. A murderer was broken on the row or wheel at Edinburgh in 1604, and two of the assassins of the regent Lennox thus suffered death.
WHEELER, JOSEPH (1836–1906), American soldier, was born at Augusta, Georgia, in 1836, and entered the United States cavalry from West Point in 1859. Within two years the Civil War broke out, and Wheeler, as a Southerner, resigned to enter the Confederate service. In a short time he became colonel of the 19th Alabama Infantry, with which he took part in the desultory operations of 1861 in Kentucky and Tennessee. He commanded a brigade at the battle of Shiloh, but soon afterwards he returned to the cavalry arm in which he won a reputation second only to Stuart's. After the action of Perryville he was promoted brigadier-general, and in January 1863 major-general. Thenceforward throughout the campaigns of Chickamauga, Chattanooga and Atlanta he commanded the cavalry of the Confederate army in the West, and when Hood embarked upon the Tennessee expedition, he left Wheeler's cavalry to harass Sherman's army during the "March to the Sea." In the closing operations of the war, having now the rank of lieutenant-general, he commanded the cavalry of Joseph Johnston's weak army in North Carolina, and was included in its surrender. After this he became a lawyer and a cotton planter and in 1882–83 and 1885–1900 was a representative in Congress. At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898, President M'Kinley, in pursuance of the policy of welding the North and the South, commissioned two ex-Confederate generals—Wheeler and Fitzhugh Lee—as major generals of United States volunteers, and in this capacity Wheeler was placed in command of the cavalry division of Shafter's army in Cuba. He commanded in the actions of Guasimas and San Juan, was afterwards sent to the Philippines in command of a brigade, and in 1900 was commissioned a brigadier-general in the regular army. Shortly afterwards he retired. General Wheeler died on the 25th of January 1906.
WHEELER, WILLIAM ALMON (1819–1887), vice-president of the United States from 1877 to 1881, was born at Malone, New York, on the 30th of June 1819. He studied at the university of Vermont for two years (1833–1835), and in 1845 was admitted to the bar. First as a Whig, and then, after 1856, as a Republican, he was prominent for many years in state and national politics. He was a member of the state Assembly in 1849–1850, a member and president pro tempore of the state Senate in 1858–1859, and a member of the national House of Representatives in 1861–1863, and again from 1869 until 1877. He was the author of the so-called "Wheeler Compromise," by which the difficulties between contending political factions in Louisiana were adjusted in 1875. Nominated for vice-president by the Republicans in 1876 on the ticket with President Hayes, he was installed in office through the decision of the Electoral Commission, and at the end of his term he retired from public life. He died at Malone on the 4th of June 1887.
WHEELING, a city and the county-seat of Ohio county, West Virginia, U.S.A., on the east bank of the Ohio river, at the mouth of Wheeling Creek, 66 m. (by rail) S.W. of Pittsburg. Pop. (1890) 34,522; (1900) 38,878, of whom 1066 were negroes, and 5461 were foreign-born, including 3106 Germans and 876 Irish, (1910, census) 41,641. Area, 3.2 sq. m. Wheeling is served by the Baltimore & Ohio, the Pennsylvania and the Wheeling & Lake Erie railways, by the belt line of the Wheeling Terminal Company and by interurban electric lines. Wheeling is the largest city in West Virginia, and commercially the most important place on the Ohio river between Pittsburg and Cincinnati. It is built on a narrow strip of bottom land, between the river and steep hills, at an elevation of about 640 ft. above tidewater. Between the mainland and Wheeling (formerly Zane's) Island, which forms a part of the city, there are a suspension bridge, which has a span of 1010 ft., and a steel bridge, and from the island across the back river channel there are two bridges to the Ohio shore, one from the middle of the island to Bridgeport on which the Old National Road crosses the river, and the other from the northern end of the island to Martin's Ferry, Ohio. A fifth bridge connects Wheeling with Bellaire, Ohio. Wheeling has a public library, containing 23,261 volumes in 1909. Near the city is the Mount de Chantal Academy (Roman Catholic) for girls, and in Wheeling is Linsly Institute, a secondary school for boys. The principal public buildings are the Custom-House and Post-Office, the City Hall, a High School, a Y.M.C.A. building and a Scottish Rite Cathedral. In the city are a City Hospital (private, 1890) and the Wheeling Hospital (under the Sisters of St Joseph, 1853). On the National Road there is a monument to Henry Clay; and in the City Hall Square is a Soldiers' Monument. By reason of its situation on the Ohio river Wheeling is an important shipping and distributing centre, and it has various important manufacturing interests. Its factory products were valued in 1905 at $23,297,475. The chief industry is the manufacture of iron and steel, which in 1905 gave employment to more than 34% of the city's wage-earners, and yielded more than 46% of the total value of its products. The manufacture of nails, begun here in 1849, was for many years of great importance. Other products in 1905 were slaughtering and meat products, $1,812,348; malt liquors, $1,541,185; tobacco and cigars (especially stogies), $1,161,594; foundry and machine shop products, $709,376; lumber and planing mill products, $685,861; pickles, preserves and sauces, $676,437; glass, $508,145; and pottery. Glass was first manufactured here in 1821. Coal is found in abundance in the surrounding region, and also natural gas, which is much used as fuel in the manufacture of iron, steel and glass.
The first settlement here was made in 1770 by Colonel Ebenezer Zane (1747–1811), and his brothers, Jonathan (one of the founders of Zanesville, Ohio) and Silas, who in the autumn of that year made their way to this point from their home in Virginia, and took possession of claims at the mouth of Wheeling Creek. Other settlers came soon afterward, and in 1774 a strong stockade fort was erected within the present limits of Wheeling—at the top of Main Street hill. Until 1776 this fort was called Fort Fincastle in honour of Lord Dunmore, Viscount Fincastle, governor of Virginia from 1771 to 1776. After 1776 it was called Fort Henry, in honour of Patrick Henry. During this period the Indians were hostile, and the settlers were frequently forced to take refuge in the stockade. On the 1st of September 1777 the fort was attacked by a large force of Indians and 15 of the whites were killed; during this attack, when the ammunition of the defenders had failed, Elizabeth Zane (c. 1759–1847), a sister of Ebenezer, brought under fire a keg of powder from a house sixty yards from the fort. In September 1782 the fort was unsuccessfully besieged for two days by a force of about 40 British regular soldiers and about 250 Indians. The town was laid out by Colonel Zane in 1793, was incorporated in 1806, and was chartered as a city in 1836. It was designated as the capital of the "restored government of Virginia" in 1861, after the secession of Virginia at the beginning of the Civil War, and was the capital of West Virginia from 1863 to 1869, and again from 1875 until May 1885. The name "Wheeling" is a corruption of an Indian word, of uncertain meaning, sometimes translated as "the place of the head."
WHETHAMSTEDE, JOHN (d. 1465), English abbot, was a son of Hugh Bostock, and was born at Wheathampstead in Hertfordshire, owing his name, the Latin form of which is Frumentarius, to this circumstance. In early life he entered St Albans Abbey and in 1420 he was chosen abbot of this house. In 1423 he attended a council at Pavia, but in England his time was mainly occupied with lawsuits, several of which he carried on to defend the property and enforce the rights of the abbey. In 1440 he resigned his post, but in 1451, on the death of his successor, John Stoke, he became abbot for the second time. He died on the 20th of January 1465, and his tomb may still be seen in the abbey church. Whethamstede was an energetic and successful abbot. He greatly improved the buildings at St Albans, which suffered somewhat during his later years owing to the wars of the roses; he also did some building at Gloucester
