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- Description is exactly "Also according to Freeman, "As for the *American Democrat,* it was founded in July of 1855. by "Messrs. Peters and [Charles L.] Wheler" with the intent of supporting the "American Platform, as adopted in Philadelphia," with Wheler as editor.
I have been researching Charles L. Wheler for ten years and unfortunately don’t know much more about him now than I did when I started. Attempts to locate other records about him have proven extremely difficult. He was supposedly born and raised in Concord, New Hampshire, working as a printer and having “been engaged in several literary enterprises here which fell through” (in 1851 he published a volume of poems), one of which was the “abolition sheet” the *Concord Tribune,* which endorsed the abolitionist Whig candidate Gen. Winfield Scott for president over the pro-slavery Franklin Pierce, and which published from September to November of 1852. By July of 1853, leaving his bulls unpaid, Wheeler had clandestinely relocated to Lewisburg, in Greenbrier County, Virginia (now West Virginia) where he edited the *Western Era* newspaper ("a rabid Know-Nothing paper") which had apparently folded up by September of 1854. That month Wheeler was one of several secretaries listed in connection with a railroad convection held at White Sulphur Springs, Virginia. According to the *Tuscumbia Enquirer* Wheler was in Franklin County, Alabama for a couple of months before the Know-Nothing Party of Lauderdale County helped him establish the *American Democrat* in Florence in July.
Wheler was "outed" by the *Athens Herald* as a free-soiler and abolitionist and, on October 4, 1855, fled to parts unknown, apparently leaving his bills unpaid. In late September, 1855 Wheler had created a stir by questioning in the pages of the *Democrat* the legality of Lauderdale County Sheriff Robert McClanahan's stint as sheriff based on a legal technicality involving the deadline for newly-elected sheriffs to post their bond.
What became of Wheler is a total mystery. Maury County, Tennessee editor John E. Hatcher (1828-1879) replaced Charles L. Wheler as editor of the *Democrat.* By November 24 of 1856 the *American Democrat* had ceased publication and John Hatcher took the job as editor of the *Columbia Mirror,* in Columbia, Maury County, Tennessee.""
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