John William Weidemeyer was born on April 26, 1819, in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

He was an author, music dealer, publisher, and entomologist. He completed his education at the Columbia College Grammar School. He taught at various seminaries in Ohio for a few years but subsequently settled in New York and entered business as a music dealer and publisher. As an amateur entomologist, he made collections of Lepidoptera and discovered several important species, e.g. Limenitis Wedemeyerii of the Adirondack Mountains. His collection of butterflies was sold to a museum in Regensburg, Germany. He contributed articles to the Christian Inquirer and the Atlantic Monthly. He also wrote a play, “The Vagabonds” (1941), produced in New York and Philadelphia, and several books, e.g., "Catalogue of North American Butterflies" (1864), "Real and Ideal: A Collection of Metrical Compositions" (1865), "American Fish, and How to Catch Them" (1885), and "Illustrations of North American Lepidoptera Sphingidae" (1903).

He married Mary Cecelia Hartt (1831-1904). He died on January 19, 1896, in New York, New York.