Manufacturing Co., with a capital of $160,000. For lack of adequate facilities, the business having increased largely, the firm, in 1856, moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, occupying the old Jerome Clock Co. building, to which additions were made from time to time, until it covered about eight acres in 1899. Nathaniel Wheeler was made general manager on the organization of the company, and in 1855 was elected president, retaining his old office. Nearly $500,000 had been expended upon experiments toward the perfecting of the machines, and since 1850 more than 2,000,000 have been manufactured. Nathaniel Wheeler took an important part in forming the combination, in 1856, of the principal sewing machine companies, the Singer and the Grover & Baker having begun business about the same time as Wheeler & Wilson. He represented his district in the state legislature and Connecticut Senate as a Democrat in 1873 and 1874, and was one of the commissioners for the building of the state capitol at Hartford. He was a director of the New York, New Haven and Hartford railroad and of the City National Bank, an incorporator of the People's Bank, vice-president of the board of trade and of the board of education in 1885-86. He favoured every project to benefit Bridgeport and was held in high esteem. Throughout his life, he received many honours and medals for his work at Wheeler & Wilson. The sewing machines of Wheeler & Wilson were exported abroad outside the United States as well. They were so renowned, that Nathaniel Wheeler received the imperial warrant from emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria as "Purveyor to the Imperial and Royal Court" (in German: k.u.k. Hoflieferant), keeping this title until his death. Family Nathaniel Wheeler was married twice: first, at Watertown, November 7, 1842, to Huldah Bradley, who bore him four children and died in 1857, leaving a son, Samuel, and a daughter, Ellen B., wife of Edward Harral; second, to Mary E. Crissey, who bore him four sons, two of whom, Archer and William Bishop, with their mother, survived. Nathaniel Wheeler died at his residence on Golden hill, Bridgeport, on December 31. 1893. Memorial A memorial fountain was constructed in 1912 in Bridgeport in his honour. The fountain is located at the intersection of Fairfield Avenue, John Street and Park Avenue and was assembled by Gutzon Borglum. After years of deterioration, the fountain started getting renovated in 2009. It