BIOGRAPHY: Joseph P. WILSON, Cambria County, PA 

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Lynne Canterbury and Diann 
Olsen. 

Portions of this book were transcribed by Clark Creery, Martha Humenik, Betty 
Mirovich and Sharon Ringler.

USGENWEB ARCHIVES (tm) NOTICE All documents placed in the USGenWeb Archives 
remain the property of the contributors, who retain publication rights in 
accordance with US Copyright Laws and Regulations. In keeping with our policy of 
providing free information on the Internet, these documents may be used by 
anyone for their personal research. They may be used by non-commercial entities 
so long as all notices and submitter information are included. These electronic 
pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit. Any other use, including 
copying files to other sites, requires permission from the contributors PRIOR to 
uploading to the other sites. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb 
Archives to store the file permanently for free access. 
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/cambria/ 
____________________________________________________________

From Wiley, Samuel T., ed. Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Cambria 
County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Union Publishing Co., 1896, p. 268-70
____________________________________________________________

JOSEPH P. WILSON, one of the representative business men of Cambria county, and 
general superintendent of the extensive Argyle and Conemaugh coal mines, is a 
son of James and Jane (Brown) Wilson, and was born near Apollo, Armstrong 
county, Pennsylvania, January 26, 1833. The Wilsons trace their ancestry back to 
the house of Stuart, in Scotland, when a MacCammet, with others of royal blood, 
was banished by Queen Anne. MacCammet settled in the neighborhood of Valley 
Forge, in eastern Pennsylvania, and either his daughter or granddaughter became 
the wife of John Wilson, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch. John 
Wilson was born near where Washington's army passed through the hardships of 
Valley Forge, and where his brother, the Rev. James Wilson, served as an army 
chaplain. A year later, 1778, John Wilson came to the Horseshoe Bend, on the 
Kiskiminetas river, then in Westmoreland county, and became a pioneer farmer, 
near the site of the present village of Vandergrift. He was a man of good 
circumstances for that day, and after some years removed to the vicinity of 
Spring Church, Armstrong county, where he died in 1837 or 1838, at a ripe old 
age. He was a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian, and his widow survived him four years, 
dying at eighty years of age. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson reared a family of six sons 
and two daughters: Joseph, a farmer, now deceased; Thomas and John, both 
Armstrong county farmers, now deceased; Samuel, a blacksmith of Tipton, Blair 
county, who died a few years ago; Polly, who married Archibald Smith, a farmer 
of Armstrong county -- both died at an old age; James; and Jackson, a farmer of 
northwestern Missouri. James Wilson (father) was born on the old Westmoreland 
county farm in 1810, and died at Apollo, Armstrong county, in 1852, aged forty- 
two years. He was reared on the farm, and lived a farmer's life until 1844, when 
he removed to Apollo, Armstrong county, where he served for eight years as a 
justice of the peace. He was a man of business ability, had always been a 
democrat in politics, and was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. His 
wife was Jane Brown, a daughter of Andrew Brown, who served as a soldier under 
General Harrison in the War of 1812, and laid his land warrant on a valuable 
piece of land in Armstrong county. James and Jane (Brown) Wilson were the 
parents of six sons and one daughter. The daughter was the eldest, and died in 
infancy, and the sons in order of age were: Andrew, a machinist of Apollo; John, 
who died at thirty-three years of age, December 8, 1864, while serving as a 
soldier in the Union army, and his remains were buried in the National cemetery 
at Chattanooga, Tenn.; Joseph P.; James P., a millwright, who died at Danbury, 
Illinois, in 1881, aged fifty years; George W., who served as a Union soldier, 
and contracted disease while in the service that caused his death, December 23, 
1869, at the early age of twenty-one years; and William, who died in childhood.
     Joseph P. Wilson was reared on his maternal grandfather Brown's farm, 
received his education in the common schools, and in 1846 went on the canal, 
where he remained up to 1854, in which year he engaged in coal-mining at 
McKeesport, this State, but did not continue there for any length of time. Soon 
thereafter the Westmoreland Coal company was organized and opened mines at Irwin 
Station, where he was engaged in mine service for them from 1856 to 1863. In the 
latter year he became mine foreman for the Penn Gas Coal company, at Penn's 
station, which position he held up to 1881, when he accepted his present 
position as superintendent of the Argyle Coal mines of South Fork. Ten years 
later, Mr. Wilson opened the Conemaugh mines at Conemaugh, and also has the 
superintendence of them. He was also one of the organizers and is a member of 
the Roaring Spring Land and Mining company, operating zinc and lead mines, in 
Jasper county, Missouri, where they own five hundred acres of land.
     On August 5, 1850, Mr. Wilson married Catherine Suman, whose father, Philip 
Suman, was a resident of near Murraysville, Westmoreland county. To Mr. and Mrs. 
Wilson have been born five children: Anna L., widow of D. L. Masters, of 
Westmoreland county; John W., assistant superintendent and mine foreman of the 
Argyle coal mines; Mary Jane, who died at seven years of age; Alice V., widow of 
George B. Heffner, of Franklin county; Mary, wife of G. W. Schrock, of South 
Fork.
     Joseph P. Wilson is a republican in politics, and served four terms as 
justice of the peace at Penn station, in Westmoreland county, one term by 
appointment and three succeeding terms by election. He is a member of 
Westmoreland Lodge, No. 518, Free and Accepted Masons, Greensburg; William Penn 
Lodge, No. 50, United Order of American Workmen, of Penn station; Council No. 
79, junior Order of American Mechanics, of South Fork, and Corona Lodge, No. 
999, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of Conemaugh, of which he is a charter 
member and Past Grand.
     During the late Civil War Mr. Wilson enlisted in September, 1862, in 
Colonel Jack's regiment, of Westmoreland county, and, after serving two months, 
was discharged on account of defective sight in the right eye. Active in church 
and party, and prominent in lodge, as well as patriotic in the Civil War, Joseph 
P. Wilson has never neglected any duty in his line of work, and has made 
investments in coal lands and coal enterprises that have become valuable. He is 
a member of the Mountain Coal company, owning nine thousand acres of good coal 
land in Adams township, which is now operated by individual coal companies on a 
royalty. He also owns a one-third interest in a seven hundred-acre tract of coal 
land in Adams township. He is superintendent of the Dunlo Coal company, of 
Dunlo, and president of the South Fork Supply and Water companies. When Mr. 
Wilson entered the coal field it was by severe struggles that men earned a 
competency, but the cramped conditions of the past have yielded to the wonderful 
demands of the present, and possibilities have become realities. He is a genial 
and companionable man, kind but firm, and generous but just. Mr. Wilson has 
permanently linked his name with the most successful business men of Cambria 
county, being a man of executive ability and great capacity for looking after 
the various details of an immense and complicated enterprise.