BIOGRAPHY: John WILSON, Mifflin County, PA

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The Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of the Juniata Valley, Comprising 
the Counties of Huntingdon, Mifflin, Juniata, and Perry, Pennsylvania.
Chambersburg, Pa.: J. M. Runk & Co., 1897, Volume I, pages 597-598.

  JOHN WILSON, Reedsville, Mifflin County, Pa., was born at Hartleton, Union 
county, Pa., February 20, 1824.  He is a son of John Foster and Agnes (Boal) 
Wilson.  His paternal great-grandfather, Peter Wilson, who was of Scotch-Irish 
birth, was an only child, and came with his parents to America.  He married Miss 
Galbraith, settled in Buffalo valley about 1755, and had three sons and four 
daughters.  Their son, John Wilson, married Nancy Foster, of English ancestry, 
and had five sons and four daughters.  John Foster Wilson, son of John and Nancy 
(Foster) Wilson, was a saddler and harness maker at Hartleton, Pa.  He was 
married to Agnes Boal.  Their children are:  John;  James, accidentally killed 
in Ohio in 1858;  Sophia Elizabeth, a teacher, died at Williamsport in 1884;  
Margaret, a teacher, residing at Williamsport, Pa;  William Foster, married 
Elizabeth Long, has ten children;  Nancy, deceased;  David Boal, captain in the 
United States Army, at Fort Missoula, Mont., married, has two sons;  and Harriet 
Newell (Mrs. William Weirick), of Washington, Ill., has one son and three 
daughters, and an infant, deceased.  Mr. Wilson died in 1859;  his wife died in 
1870.
   John Wilson attended a subscription school.  At the age of twenty he took 
charge of his father's tannery.  In 1849 he came to Reedsville, where he built a 
tannery and manufactured leather.  In 1867 he formed a partnership with H. H. 
Gibboney in the manufacture of woolen goods, which continued for fourteen years.  
Mr. Wilson was instrumental in the organization of the Bank at Reedsville, of 
which he is now a director.  He is a Republican;  has served ten years as 
justice of the peace.  He is a member of Lodge No. 203, F. and A. M., at 
Lewistown.  John Wilson was first married to Sarah Barber, who died in 1863.  
They had five children, of whom two are living.  He was afterwards married, in 
1865, to Margaret C. Barber, who died March 18, 1886.  Mr. Wilson is a member of 
the Presbyterian church.