His father, Jacob, was the first African American to vote in the state of Maryland after passage of the Fifteenth Amendment; a park in Hagerstown is named after him.

[2] During the 1888 presidential election, he was an active speaker on behalf of the eventually successful Republican candidate Benjamin Harrison at ward meetings.

[2][5] Wheaton married Ella Chambers on June 6, 1889, and had two children, Layton J. and Frank P.[1] He apprenticed law with a Hagerstown attorney before moving to Washington, D.C., where he attended Howard University.

He later opened a private law practice and became a major part of the local African American community, spearheading efforts to pass civil rights legislation.

[1] Newspapers of the time called the district "the most aristocratic portion of Minneapolis" in the state house; it included a large chunk of the metropolitan area from the Kenwood neighborhood to modern Eden Prairie, Edina and Excelsior.

[2] He later moved to New York City and by 1905 had set up his own law office in Manhattan with James Curtis, another African American attorney who had worked in Minnesota.

He unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the New York State Assembly in 1919; however he was subsequently given a position in the city district attorney's office, serving from January to May 1920.

The previous fall he had stood bail for Luther Boddy, an accused murderer of two police detectives, taking on a $10,000 surety bond.

[2][14] On January 15, 1922, after searching the city for the escaped accused murderer with the help of friends and colleagues, a despondent Wheaton committed suicide by inhaling gas at his home at 208 West 137th Street; his body was found by his son.

[2][13] The funeral procession attracted 20,000 people to the streets to pay respects to Wheaton; and he was buried in Woodland Cemetery in The Bronx.

[1][15] The news of his death was reported in several Twin Cities newspapers; the Minneapolis Journal saluted "the spectacular career of J. Frank Wheaton, Negro lawyer.