Duval-Marion County FlArchives Biographies.....Wilson, George West 1859 - 1908 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/fl/flfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com January 31, 2008, 11:08 pm Author: B. F. Johnson George West Wilson Perhaps no man who has ever lived in Florida exercised during his life a wider influence, was more useful, or more greatly mourned at the time of his death than George West Wilson, editor-in-chief of the Florida Times-Union for many years. Mr. Wilson was born in Boone county, Ky., on May 10, 1859. On both sides of the family his people were among the first colonists of Kentucky, the Wilsons settling in what is now Harrison county and the Wests in Nicholas county. Both branches migrated to Kentucky when it was merely a western extension of Virginia and North Carolina, and his early youth was spent near Hamilton, Ohio, where in the public schools he received the rudiments of an education, which owing to poor health had to be completed by private tutors. Later in youth with the advantage of a quiet country home and a good library he was for years an untiring student and became a really learned man. Upon the death of his father in 1870, his mother returned to her old home at Carlisle, Ky., residing there until 1874, when she married Col. R. A. Stewart, of Louisiana, and moved to Florida, settling at Orange Lake, where young Wilson grew into a robust man. His career naturally divides itself into three sections. In 1881 he entered journalism by publishing a little four-page weekly, which he called the Orange Lake Floridian. This was before the railroad had reached his section and was started by him more for amusement and occupation than with any serious purpose of making a business of journalism. He mastered the rudiments of the printers' art, set type, distributed it, worked the press, washed the forms, wrote editorials and locals, classified the news and carried his papers to the mail. The old Washington hand press and the apron full of type grew into quite a formidable printing outfit, and the toy became too expensive to be located in the country, so it was decided to move the outfit to Ocala, a town at that time of two thousand souls and eighteen miles distant from Orange Lake. The name of the paper was changed to the Florida Lacon. It was at Ocala that he published the first daily paper issued in the interior of peninsular Florida. It was issued for one week to chronicle the session of the Circuit Court. Within a year from the time of his going to Ocala, Mr. Wilson purchased an old established weekly, The Banner, and consolidated them as The Banner-Lacon, which was owned and edited by him up to the great fire at Ocala in 1884. The experience gained in practical knowledge of the business in these early ventures proved of vast benefit to him in later years, and the business which he had engaged in chiefly as an amusement became the great work of his life. In 1897 he is found in charge of The Florida Daily Citizen, of Jacksonville, and from the first issue his practical knowledge enabled him to put out a paper which took front rank. In the fall of that same year, 1897, the Florida Times-Union was consolidated with The Citizen, and placed under his control, as editor and president of the company publishing the consolidated papers known as the Times-Union and Citizen. Here Mr. Wilson was able to show the mettle that was in him, and in the ten years that he was at the head of the Times-Union, he built up one of the strongest and most influential newspapers in the South. Under his hand its editorial page was possibly the best in the South, and in every department it ranked, and continues to rank, with the leading journals of the country. The paper as it stands today is a great monument to the ability, the energy and the integrity of George West Wilson. He fairly gave his life to it and wore himself out in its service. His public life began in 1881, when, then only twenty-two years old, he was tendered and accepted the nomination for the Legislature from Marion county, simply for the purpose of keeping up the Democratic organization. He served two years as secretary of the Second Congressional district committee; two years as chairman of the committee. In 1892 he was a member of the State and Congressional committees, in charge of headquarters at Jacksonville, in all of these positions, serving without pay, he not only paid his own expenses and gave his time, but contributed largely towards the campaign expense from his own pocket. For three years he was president of the Semi-tropical Exposition, president of the Lake Weir Chautauqua Lyceum Association, a member of the Forestry congress, commissioner to the Paris exposition, and member of the State World's Fair directory; serving in all these positions without compensation, and defraying his own expenses, but this is not all. During his busy life he served for six years as president of the Board of Trustees of the Florida Agricultural College and the University of Florida; president of the Florida Press Association in 1905-1906; vice-president of the Seminole Club in 1899; treasurer of the Jacksonville Trade Carnival Association, from 1903 to 1906; treasurer of the Galveston Relief Fund of Jacksonville; treasurer of the Florida storm sufferers fund; treasurer of the Florida State Fair Association; secretary of the Florida Horticultural Society; trustee of the Industrial Indian school fund; and by special enactment, trustee of Indian lands; member of the Indian river and harbor committee of the Jacksonville Board of Trade; for two years editor and half owner of the Industrial Record of Jacksonville. All of these positions were accepted by him and faithful service rendered, solely inspired by love of the State. None of them brought him revenue and all of them cost him time, money, and strength. His record shows that he was a very glutton for work, if that work was calculated to do good for Florida. Late Gov. Francis P. Fleming, in writing a sketch of Mr. Wilson, among other things said, as follows: "He has had the experience of travel in many parts of the world, and an unusual intimacy with men of learning and of great lives. In 1885 he spent some time in Mexico, where he made some valuable archaeological discoveries, having been a scientific student for many years along the lines of prehistoric man. He had as his friends some of the most famous men of the century. Richard A. Proctor, the world-famous astronomer, stated many times that Mr. Wilson was the only intimate friend of his life, as they were close companions for several years, at the time that Mr. Proctor was finishing his great book on Old and New Astronomy. Dr. T. Sterry Hunt, the geologist and chemist, the greatest of his school, was also his companion for two winters at Oaklawn, the orange grove home of Mr. Wilson before the freeze. It was at the home of Mr. Wilson that Dr Hunt wrote his last and greatest essay on the evolution of geology and chemistry, an essay that has been translated into every civilized tongue, and at the same time Mr. Proctor was completing his chapter on his belief in the laws of stellar evolution, that has been read by every scientific man of the present age." In the earlier years of his business activity before becoming finally established in Jacksonville, he built the first steamboat to ply the Orange lake. This was used for the transportation of the great orange crop of that section to the first railroad. He established the Ocala Foundry and Machine Works, built a saw mill, cotton ginnery, and founded numerous other smaller enterprises. Up to the great freeze of 1894-1895, he was said to be the fifth largest individual orange grower in Florida. Mr. Wilson was twice married. In 1881 to Miss Mamie Fair Marshall, of Columbia, S. C., who died two years later, and in 1889 he was married to Miss Belle Robinson, daughter of Dr. Henry Robinson, a Jacksonville banker. Of this marriage two sons were born, Henry and George, both of whom, with their mother, survived him. In 1906 his health became impaired as a result of the strenuous life which he had led, and though there were intervals of improvement, he steadily failed in strength. In the spring of 1908, in hope of betterment, he went to Chicago, and placed himself under the treatment of an eminent specialist. Returning home apparently much improved, after a short time there came a relapse, and he steadily grew worse, until June 2, 1908, when he passed away. The day after his death, the Times-Union, speaking editorially, gave vent to the grief of every employee of the paper. Among other things it said: "He was a kind and affectionate husband, a good father and a true friend. A man of many noble traits of character, broad liberality, and charity. He was just and fair to all men, patient and even tempered under trying circumstances, and was always of a cheery, sunshiny nature even during the trials and sufferings of his long illness. He believed in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, and he lived up to his faith. He was a strong, manly man, of great force of character and trained executive ability, yet he was as gentle and sympathetic as a woman in his friendships. George Wilson was a man among men. With him self came last, and he was ever ready to deny himself needed comforts that he might do more for his fellow men. There was no labor too arduous, no demand too great when a friend needed him." The seeds he sowed in faith, for the betterment of Florida, are daily bringing a crop of good results, and the work of George West Wilson will be in evidence in Florida, when his children's children are gray haired men and women. [EDITOR'S NOTE.—In preparing this sketch use has been made freely of a sketch which appeared in the Times-Union on the day of Mr. Wilson's death and of a previous sketch prepared by Governor Fleming for the "Memoirs of Florida." In certain parts of it the identical language used has been copied, and this note is an acknowledgment.] Additional Comments: Extracted from: FLORIDA EDITION MAKERS OF AMERICA AN HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL WORK BY AN ABLE CORPS OF WRITERS VOL. III. Published under the patronage of The Florida Historical Society, Jacksonville, Florida ADVISORY BOARD: HON. W. D. BLOXHAM COL. FRANK HARRIS HON. R. W. DAVIS SEN. H. H. McCREARY HON. F. P. FLEMING W. F. STOVALL C. A. CHOATE, SECRETARY 1909 A. B. CALDWELL ATLANTA, GA. COPYRIGHT 1909 B. F. JOHNSON Photo: http://www.usgwarchives.net/fl/duval/photos/bios/wilson7gbs.jpg File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/fl/duval/bios/wilson7gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/flfiles/ File size: 10.9 Kb