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Saturday, May 19, 2012
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You are here ::PoliticsMayors of MemphisSeth Wheatley
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Seth Wheatley

Born: circa 1801

Died: 1858

Seth Wheatley was mayor during Memphis' fifth corporate year.  He was the long-time head of the Farmers and Merchants bank and was also both a lawyer and a planter.  Wheatley was the first mayor to mobilize the vote of poorer Memphians.  He defeated Isaac Ramsey largely on the votes of Irish immigrants of the Pinch District and Catfish Bay.  During his tenure as mayor Ramsey had complained bitterly about the smell emanating from Catfish Bay.  Seth Wheatley found significant political traction as the protector of that impoverished area. 

Immediately after the election the entire area known as Catfish Bay was rendered uninhabitable by a large scale release of sluice from an adjacent saw mill.  The incident was ruled an accident.

Wheatley remained in Shelby County until his death in 1858.

  
Here the history of Memphis is presented.  From the Chickasaw to the great New Madrid earthquake of 1811 on to the land's purchase by John Overton and Andrew Jackson, followed by incorporation and Civil War occupation.  Picking up with the yellow fever followed by the surrender of the city charter and the tenure of the former city as a taxing district of Shelby County and the state of Tennessee.  We continue Memphis history into the days of Crump and the progressive era when the city would be made to conform to order.  Memphis history is rich with time, music and commerce.  From the blues of Beale Street to Elvis Presley and Sun Records the City of Memphis been enriched by transporation, cotton, mules and hardware; bridge openings to celebrate and the sorrows of the 1968 Sanitation Strike which culminated in the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Memphis has persevered through pain and has been anything but dull.  This is our story...
img List of Mayors | Marcus Winchester | Isaac Rawlings | Seth Wheatley | Robert Lawrence | Enoch Banks | John H. Morgan | Thomas Dixon | William Spickernagle | Edwin Hickman | Jesse J. Finley | Gardner B. Locke | A. B. Taylor | A. H. Douglas | Thomas Carroll | Richard D. Baugh | John Park | Lt. Col. Thomas H. Harris | William Lofland | Edgar McDavitt | John W. Leftwich | John Johnson | John Loague | John R. Flippin | John Overton, Jr. | Dr. D. T. Porter | David Park Hadden | William D. Bethell | W. L. Clapp | J. J. Williams | Edward H. Crump | George C. Love | Tyler McClain | R. A. Utley | Thomas C. Ashcroft | Harry H. Litty | Frank L. Monteverde | Rowlett Paine | Watkins Overton | Joseph Patrick Boyle | Walter Chandler | Sylvanus W. Polk, Sr. | James J. Pleasants, Jr. | Frank T. Tobey | Edmund Orgill | Henry Loeb | Claude Armour | William B. Ingram | Wyeth Chandler | J. O. Patterson, Jr. | Wallace Madewell img
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