John Wieting

He retired from lecturing at the age of 45 in 1862, and spent his remaining years traveling the world and engaging in philanthropic efforts, mainly aimed at the development of Syracuse.

His grandfather, John Christopher Wieting, had immigrated to the United States from Prussia or Germany and fought with the colonists in the American Revolutionary War.

[1] After the war, John Christopher became an American citizen and moved to Minden, New York, where he was pastor of the Lutheran Church.

[2] Wieting started teaching at the public schools of Deerfield, New York, when he was fourteen years old, after his father's business failed.

He began lecturing across upstate New York in 1843, gradually expanding his performance in the years that followed.

[1] While his wife maintained that these lectures were "modest and quiet", others such as Frederick Hollick criticized his talks as including "generally erroneous" and misleading explanations, specifically about contraception.

[1][6] In the late 1860s, Wieting became involved with the Cardiff Giant, a local archaeological hoax then believed to be authentic, attempting to purchase it for $25,000.

They soon joined forces with another group consisting of Simeon Rouse and Alfred Higgins.

The owner of the Cardiff Giant eventually accepted their offer of $30,000 for 3⁄4 ownership over Wieting's.

[11] Scholar Michael Sappol named Wieting, along with Frederick Hollick, one of the two most significant anatomical lecturers of the era.

[20] The construction of several theatres in Syracuse, namely the Wieting— considered "one of the premiere theaters in the East", developed the city into a place to try-out plays that would later go to be performed on Broadway.