Family name origins & meanings
- English : occupational name for a maker of wheels, from Middle English whele ‘wheel’ (Old English hwēol) + wyrhta ‘wright’. See also Wheeler.
- John Wheelwright (c. 1592–1679), clergyman, came to Boston, MA, from Lincolnshire, England in 1636. He was banished from Massachusettes for his support of his sister-in-law, Anne Hutchinson, in the antinomian controversy; he set up a community at Exeter, NH.