Capt. Harry F. “Cap” Wiseman
MIDDLEBURY — Capt. Harry F. “Cap” Wiseman, 96, of Middlebury died Friday, May 16, 2008, at Fletcher Allen Healthcare in Burlington. He was born March 2, 1912, in North Troy, N.Y. (formerly Lansinburgh), the son of the late Captain Roger and Hilda Horton Wiseman.
He was employed by the Sun Oil Company for 37 years, becoming a captain on oil tankers at the age of 21, where he piloted ships on the east coast from Marcus Hook, Penn., to the N.Y. Canal System to the Great Lakes. During World War II (1941-1945) he served under the U.S. Coast Guard (Merchant Marines).
After his retirement in 1966, he started a CB radio repair business called the Captain’s Radio Shack in Hampton, N.J. A CB’er and Amateur Radio operator since childhood, he made many friends on the CB channels in the New York, New Jersey and Vermont areas.
His early passion for electronics led him to have the first TV set in the Capital District of Albany in 1939. Reporting his program reception helped General Electric and NBC develop their TVs.
After spending many summers of his youth on Lake Champlain and proposing to his wife, Ethel Olga Appenzeller, on the shores of Lake Champlain, he returned with his wife to the North Country in 1970. His hobby of recording weather data became well known, and in 1980 the National Weather Service made him an Official Weather Observer.
His ideal location in South Lincoln made him the third highest weather reporting station in the Eastern United States. He retired from the Vermont Acid Rain Monitoring Program and the NWS in April 1995. During those sixteen years he made many friends with news reporters, weather personalities and both local and national weather offices such as Stuart Hall and Sharon Meyer.
