Lapeer-Wayne County MI Archives Biographies.....Wilson, William Wallace 1828 - 
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/mi/mifiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com April 22, 2007, 3:21 pm

Author: Chapman Bros. (1892)

WILLIAM WALLACE WILSON. Among the native sons of Michigan who made of themselves
prominent business men in Lapeer, we are pleased to mention in this BIOGRAPHICAL
RECORD this well-known painter and paper hanger, who was born at Detroit, May
20, 1828. He is a son of John W. and Deborah (Cushman) Wilson. The father, who
was of American origin, and who was according to the best recollection of the
son, born at Middlebury, Vt., died when William was but two years of age, in
Columbus, Ohio. The marriage of the parents took place at Middlebury, June 14,
1812.

  Our subject's earliest recollections are of being at Shoreham, Vt., whence his
sister, Mrs. Mary A. Wells, took him to Ypsilanti, Mich., expecting him to make
his home with her, but in the year 1840 the little fellow ran away from home and
became a boot black. He remembers blacking the boots of Gen. William Henry
Harrison for which he received a dollar. The next we hear of this youth he was
in Sarnia, Canada, where he was employed to buy sugar and furs from the Indians
in which work he continued for a year. He next went to Albany, N. Y., paying his
way by acting as canal boy, getting $7 a month and board, and he was at Albany
during the great fire which desolated that city. The night preceding that
disaster a colored boy came to seek lodging at the boarding house where young
Wilson worked and was refused on account of having no money, but Wilson told him
not to go away and that he would find him a place to sleep, which he did, and
this black boy was the means of saving the lives of all who were in the house by
rousing them when the fire approached their dwelling. They barely escaped with
their lives and without a hat young Wilson made his way to New York where he
spent some six months. After a year passed upon Long Island, this young man
returned to Vermont where his brother, John B., was living, and there worked in
an hotel, and at Deerfield, Mass., he for two years did chores for his board and
went to school. Returning to Vermont he spent a short time there and then went
to New London, Oneida County, N. Y., and two years later came to Michigan,
locating in Hillsdale. But in 1849 when the gold fever broke out he went to
California by way of the Isthmus and after working in the mines and at other
kinds of labor for a year, he returned East with his brother-in-law who was
suffering with palsy.

  Mr. Wilson now spent two years in a window shade and paper hanging
establishment with his brother, Clark, in New York City, and then came to Lapeer
County, this State, to which his brother, John B., had already removed and at
once undertook farming. He was married December 24, 1855, to Miss Lomira Brazie,
daughter of Nathan and Delight (Knapp) Brazie. She was born in Bloomfield,
Trumbull County, Ohio. June 12, 1836, and came to Michigan with her parents in
1854. Her father is still living and is now eighty-two years of age. He was born
in Summit, Schoharie County, N. Y., December 9, 1809. He was bereaved of his
wife, May 18, 1889; she died in Flint and is buried in Lapeer. Mr. and Mrs.
Wilson have two children, Clark W., born in Lapeer, December 5, 1856 and now
living in Dallas, Tex., where he is correspondent and business agent for the Ft.
Worth Gazette. He was married in Kansas City, Mo., June 11, 1884, to Miss Ida
Meade. Their home has been blessed by the birth of one child- Hattie Belle. The
second son, William Wirt Wilson, is a photographer and makes his home in
Philadephia.

  The political convictions of Mr. Wilson are such as have brought him into line
with the Republican party, and in Arcadia Township, Lapeer County, where he
formerly resided he was Township Treasurer for three years besides being
Supervisor and School Inspector. He served the Government as enrolling officer
for the space of a year. The Universalist Church is the religious body with
which Mr. and Mrs. Wilson are identified, and in it they are active and earnest
members. They spent two years from 1884 to 1886 in Little Rock, Ark. and
although they enjoyed this life in the Southland they find their most congenial
home in Michigan.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

Portrait and Biographical Record of Genesee, Lapeer and Tuscola Counties,
Michigan, Containing Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative
Citizens, Together with Biographies of all the Governors of the State, and of
the Presidents of the United States

Chicago:
Chapman Bros.
1892


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/mi/lapeer/bios/wilson91nbs.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/mifiles/

File size: 5.0 Kb