Biographical Sketch of Addison WILSON (1893); Chester County, PA Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by John Morris . *********************************************************************** USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: Printing this file within by non-commercial individuals and libraries is encouraged, as long as all notices and submitter information is included. Any other use, including copying files to other sites requires permission from the submitters PRIOR to uploading to any other sites. We encourage links to the state and county table of contents. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ *********************************************************************** Source: "Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Chester County, Pennsyl- vania, comprising a historical sketch of the county," by Samuel T. Wiley and edited by Winfield Scott Garner, Gresham Publishing Company, Phila- delphia, PA, 1893, pp. 553-4. "ADDISON WILSON, a substantial and prosperous farmer residing near Kimber- ton, who has served his township for many years as a school director, and is a highly esteemed and useful citizen, was born December 5, 1840, in West Vincent township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, and is the oldest son of Thomas and Rebecca (Hale) Wilson. He was reared on the farm where he now resides, and received a good common school education in his native township, after which he engaged in farming on the old homestead, and has devoted all his life to agricultural pursuits. He is energetic and indus- trious, and being a man of good business judgment, has been very success- ful in life. In his political affiliations he has always been a democrat, and for eight years has served as a school director of his township, being also the present treasurer of the school board. "On January 14, 1875, Mr. Wilson was united by marriage to Rebecca Shick, a daughter of John Shick, a prosperous farmer of West Vincent township, and they have had four children, all sons: John, born January 18, 1876; Raymond, born April 21, 1877, died August 27, 1877; Edwin, born November 7, 1878; and Clarence, born February 12, 1886. Mrs. Wilson was born Nov- ember 4, 1841, in this township, where she grew to womanhood, and was educated in the public schools. "The Wilson family is of English descent and are old residents of Chester county. Here Thomas Wilson, paternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born and passed his life, dying in West Vincent township, aged nearly ninety years. His vocation was that of a farmer, and politically he was a Jacksonian democrat. He married Elizabeth Wills, by whom he had one child, a son, named Thomas Wilson (father), who was born in West Vin- cent township in November, 1802, and died on the farm now owned by his son, Addison Wilson, on November 7, 1884, aged eighty-two years. "Reared on the farm, Thomas Wilson imbibed a love for agricultural pur- suits, and purchasing a tract of one hundred acres of choice land, he devoted much of his life to the cultivation of the soil. He also owned and for a number of years operated a mill at Birchrunville, this township. In his political convictions he was a stanch democrat, doing what he could to advance the principles he held so dear. He was an earnest friend of popular education, and held the office of school director in West Vincent township for a period of thirty-nine years, during which time he beheld a generation of school boys grow to manhood, assume the active and respon- sible duties of life, and most of them pass away to make room for the generation that followed. Mr. Wilson married Rebecca Hale, daughter of an Englishman named Lawrence Hale, and by this union had a family of nine children, five of whom - two sons and three daughters - are still living. They were: Lydia, long since deceased; Margaret, who married Levi Emery, and is now deceased; Mary, the wife of Edwin Williams, of West Pikeland; Sophia, married Levi Rettew, a resident of Spring City; Ellen, the wife of George Christman, of Schuylkill township; Addison, the subject of this sketch; Sarah, deceased; John, who resides at Columbia, Lancaster county, being employed as trainmaster on the Reading and Columbia railroad; and Matilda, deceased."