George Montague Wheeler (1842-1905)

He grew up in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, and graduated from the Military Academy of West Point in 1866. He was commissioned as a Lieutenant into the Corps of Engineers and in 1869 was sent on reconnaissance through eastern Nevada. From 1872 to 1879, he led the Wheeler Survey, an ambitious plan authorized by Congress to map the United States west of the 100th Meridian at a scale of 8-miles to the inch. In 1879, his survey and others similar to it were reorganized as the United States Geological Survey. In 1881, Captain Wheeler represented the United States at the 3rd International Geographical Congress & Exhibition in Venice, Italy. He retired in 1888 with the rank of Major and built what became better known as Blair Eyrie at Bar Harbor, Maine. In 1874, he married "Jimmie" Blair whose family lived at Blair House in Washington D.C. for over a century. They died without children.