Randolph County, West Virginia Biography of MERRITT WILSON This file was submitted by Valerie Crook, E-mail address: The submitter does not have a connection to the subject of this sketch. This file may be freely copied by individuals and non-profit organizations for their private use. All other rights reserved. Any other use, including publication, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission by electronic, mechanical, or other means requires the written approval of the file's author. This file is part of the WVGenWeb Archives. If you arrived here inside a frame or from a link from somewhere else, our front door is at http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm The History of West Virginia, Old and New Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 644-645 MERRITT WILSON has devoted all the active years of his experience to the lumber industry, and the scene of his operations as a timber and saw mill operator has been in West Virginia for a number of years. Mr. Wilson has his home at Elkins and is active head of several large lumber companies. He was born near Wilson in Allegany County, Mary- land, December 7, 1866. The village of Wilson is now in Garrett County. His paternal ancestors have been in America nearly two centuries. The founder of the family was Thomas Wilson who came from the North of Ireland about 1732 to Nova Scotia and subsequently settled in Frederick County, Maryland. He married Elizabeth Riley. Their son, Thomas, born in 1741, lived near Cresaptown in Allegany County, Maryland, and participated as a soldier in a number of the border wars. He married Mary Hayes. Their son, also named Thomas, was born in 1777, and lived at what is now Kitzmiller, Garrett County, Maryland. He was owner and operator of a mill, was also a practical surveyor, and was a noted hunter. He married Susan Bow- man. Their son, James, became a farmer, living near the present site of Kitzmiller, and married Lucinda Junkins. George W. Wilson, father of Merritt Wilson, was a son of James and Lucinda (Junking) Wilson, and during the Civil war served as a first lieutenant in the Third West Virginia Cavalry in the Union Army. After leaving the army he became interested in farming and also was a lumber manufacturer at Wilson, Maryland. This career also took him into public affairs, and he served three terms in the Maryland Legislature. His wife was Eliza Harvey. Merritt Wilson completed a common school education in Garrett County, had a business course in Bridgewater Col- lege in Virginia, and at the age of twenty-three entered his father's store and office at Wilson, and had a varied routine as bookkeeper, clerk and also handling the railroad office work for West Virginia Central Railway. His father died in December 1894, leaving the business to the family. His training and experience well qualified him to become president and general manager of the Wilson Lumber Com- pany which the family organized to conduct and continue the business. In 1900 the manufacturing plant was moved from Wilson to Fairfax, and in 1903 the Wildell Lumber Company was organized, and a large tract of timber was purchased in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. In the fall of 1903 Mr. Wilson removed to Wildell, the industrial town established by the company, and he took personal charge of the enterprise. He continued to manage the business there until the timber was exhausted in 1916, and since then his home has been in Elkins. Mr. Wilson is president of the Wilson Lumber Company, the Wildell Lumber Company and the Kuthbell Lumber Com- pany, and is also president of the Inter-Mountain Coal and Lumber Company, an organization owning and controlling a large coal and lumber property in Kentucky. He is a director in the Marlin Lumber Company, a director in the Bank of Mill Creek, the Peoples National Bank, Elkins, and has extensive interests in farming and live stock. He is president of the Central West Virginia Fire Protective Asso- ciation, an association organized for the purpose of pro- tecting the forests of that part of the state from fire and reforesting the cutover lands. As was true of his father, Mr. Wilson has always com- bined an intelligent interest in public affairs with his busi- ness. He served as a presidential elector in the Sixth Con- gressional District of Maryland the first time McKinley ran for President. He has always been a republican, and in 1899 was elected a member of the Maryland Legislature, serving in the session of 1900 and the extra session of 1901. Mr. Wilson is a member of the Elkins Rotary Club and Country Club. October 29, 1895, he married Miss Forest D. Wolfe, daughter of Francis S. and Jennie Wolfe, of McArthur, Ohio. Their three children are, Frank E., Curtis R., and Merritt Wilson, Jr.