Eighty-one thousand dollars with a 2020 value of $2.2 million. It was like hitting the lottery.
It took less than 10 minutes for JS Wheeler to unearth Nelson s buried treasure, but the curse that came along with it would never be exorcised from the Wheeler family tree. Wheeler was anathematized by the confluence of ill-gotten gains and his pious faux-service to his neighbors.
Since his arrival with his wife Nettie and only child May in Mason City in 1871, JS Wheeler had looked for an opportunity to transform the façade of being part of Old Money from New York, into a reality of true wealth.