East of Edgefield along Cumberland River Nashville, TN
Circa 1857. 2- story Gothic Revival Villa style mansion
Image of Wheless' Gothic style home on north bank of the Cumberland River
Wesley Norton Wheless (1823-1861) and Susan Ann Hobson Wheless (1831-1915) built their huge 16-room mansion in Edgefield on 38 acres. They wed in 1849. The land was a gift from Susan's father, Nicholas Hobson. The Hobson family had a large estate on the Cumberland River - known as "Old Hobson Home Place" - now Hobson House on Woodland St.
Wheless had grown up in Clarksville, and when both parents died, he as the oldest brother relocated his younger siblings to Nashville. He took care of them and tutored them himself. Wheless went into banking with his father-in-law, Nicholas Hobson. Wheless ended up three English banking firms (houses) and the Bank of Nashville/ City Bank in 1853. He was also a partner in the cotton firm of Hewitt, Norton & Co. of New Orleans and a managing partner of the Liverpool office. The Wheless family had two sons: Hewitt Hobson Wheless of Shreveport, LA and Wesley N. Wheless, Jr. of Augusta, GA. At the start of the Civil War, Wheless and his wife traveled to England with her parents with his firms' investments for safety. He died while abroad. In 1873, Susan sold sixty acres to a syndicate for a new village of East Edgefield that enlarged the growing Edgefield community.
Susan remarried to Elbert Hartwell English (1816-1884), a distinguished attorney and jurist in Arkansas and two-term Chief Justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court and lived in Arkansas. The family is remembered with Wheless St. in North Nashville. See Hobson House
Sources:
Nell Savage Mahoney, Nashville Tennessean Magazine, April 26, 1953
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