Wheaton developed along the railroad, growing from settlement in the 1830s into a recorded town in 1853 after local landholders helped secure the route of the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad. Among the early settlers were Erastus Gary in 1832 and brothers Warren L. and Jesse C. Wheaton in 1837, all from Pomfret, Connecticut, who claimed adjacent lands and became related through marriage. In 1846 the nearest post office was at Langdon, about one and a half miles north. After railroad directors met rejection in Naperville, they looked north for a route that would parallel St. Charles Road, but the Wheaton brothers and Gary offered more than three miles of free right-of-way through their lands, leading the railroad to move its route south and complete the survey in 1847. Track was laid and a depot built with a sign for Wheaton, first trains passed through in the fall of 1849, and regular freight and passenger service began soon after. A few businesses opened in 1850, postal service shifted from Langdon to Wheaton in 1852, and by 1853 the Wheaton brothers had laid out, surveyed, and platted ten blocks around the railroad. On June 20, 1853, the Town of Wheaton was officially recorded with the county, and the Wheatons offered lots to anyone who would build on them to encourage development. In 1856 the railroad built a new passenger and freight depot with an express office. According to an 1857 county history, Wheaton had about 1,000 people and more than 200 buildings, including a hotel, stores, factories, a steam flouring mill, lightning rod manufactories, lumber yards, markets, post offices, a schoolhouse, an institute, a printing office, and a nursery.