r. J. M. Wheat, secretary of the Redlands board of health, was born at Franklin, N. Y., in 1823. He was raised on a farm and received his early education in the district schools and at the Delaware Literary Institute. Later he studied medicine and was graduated at the Albany Medical College, at Albany, N. Y., in the class of 1853. Three years later Dr. Wheat removed to Minnesota and practiced his profession in that state. He was married in 1862 to Miss Almira E. Foote, a native of New York state. They have two children living, a daughter and a son. In the years between 1875 and '77 Dr. Wheat was a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives and for the next ten years was a member of the Minnesota State Senate. In 1887 he came to Redlands. Here he has cared for an orange grove of ten acres, and, in 1891, was appointed a member of the board of health of this city and elected its secretary, serving continuously in this capacity to the present time.

(Source: Illustrated Redlands, 1897, p. 29.)