A Wilson Family Tree
Notes for William Wilson
From the Hotchkiss manuscript:
The Wilson family came to Missouri from Staunton, Augusta County, Virginia. William was the youngest of eight children of Robert Wilson, who probably came to Virginia from Pennsylvania. Robert bought 461 acres of farm land in Augusta County in 1755 from his brother, who had acquired it ten years earlier.
When you are the last of eight children, with five brothers ahead of you, the likelihood of inheriting land from your father is usually poor. That society usually practiced a variation of primogeniture, leaving most of the land to the oldest son. This was a necessary practice to keep the land from being divided into small, uneconomical pieces. There is no concrete evidence, but one source says that William was a lawyer in Virginia before he came to Missouri. It would be logical for him to try to learn a profession rather than wait hopelessly for a farm of his own.
Robert Wilson died in 1768 and left the property to two of William's older brothers. Good things come to him who waits. William waited 48 years until 1816. In the meantime brother Robert had one child who predeceased him. Brother David never married. The entire property was willed by David in 1816 to William.
At that time William was probably well past the age of 60. His oldest boy was 26, and the youngest was 9. It was a little late to start a successful career in farming. We don't know what the condition of the property was when William inherited it, but we do know from the county records that he sold 200 acres in 1817. The record of deeds of trust show that William and his sons placed nine separate deeds of trust on the property between 1818 and 1821. What was left of the equity interest was sold in 1821.
It is quite reasonable that William wanted a new start in 1820. Many settlers had already moved from Virginia to Saline County, Missouri. Mrs. Dabney says that David did not come until 1830, but William and his wife and the other three boys all left Virginia in 1820 or shortly thereafter.
Note that William moved to Howard County, Missouri, not Saline County (some of the family moved to Saline County later). Also, he did not move to Missouri until 1824 or '25, though two of his sons did go earlier, about 1820. The Adair Wilson family record says William moved from Virginia to Missouri in 1824. "History of Saline County" (in the biography of William Adair Wilson) says 1825. Daughter Nancy was married in Augusta County in September 1824, and her marriage bond was signed by William and son William A., showing that they were in Virginia at that time, so I think 1825 is probably more likely. The financial problems discussed below may explain why all of the Wilsons decided to move west to Missouri, to get a fresh start.
The line in the Hotchkiss manuscript that William might have been a lawyer in Augusta County is based on the following, which is from a summary of a deed in Augusta County Deed Book 40, p. 362:
27 January 1816 - Whereas I, Edward Askins OF THE COUNTY OF PERRY IN THE INDIANA TERRITORY (Note: became a State this same year) - have sold to John Buchanan of Augusta County, State of Virginia, a tract of land containing by survey 127 acres, he is to have it - which land is situated in Augusta County, Virginia on the Waters of Christians Creek and was devised to me by Will of John Askins, dec'd. I authorize William Wilson Senior of said County to be my attorney in fact to convey said land...
("They Went Thataway" by Charles Hughes Hamlin, Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, 1985, vol. 1, p. 7.) This one mention is not much to go by to say that William was a lawyer, but it might be significant that William was typically listed as William Willson Sr. in the Augusta County tax rolls. On the other hand, perhaps this is the William referred to as William Willson Esq. in the tax rolls.
"Portrait and Biographical Record of Lafayette and Saline Counties, Missouri", in the biography of Robert H. Wilson, says that his grandfather (who is never named) was a half-brother of James Wilson, the signer of the Declaration of Independence. I think they were confused about this; I don't see any way it could be right -- but see the notes for William's father, Robert. This biography plus a biography of Adair Wilson in "Portrait and Biographical Record of Denver and Vicinity, Colorado" also say that William served in the Revolutionary War. In addition, one of the entries for John Wilson in "California Pioneer and Immigrant Files, 1790-1950" on Ancestry.com has a note "War of Revolution" next to William Wilson (John's father). A letter (obtained from William and Deborah Vaughan) by Ben H. Wilson (another grandson of William) says that "During the early wars Grandfather was in the Army and was ordered from Virginia to South Carolina and while there he married. He was, so history says, about the only man of his company that succeeded in getting back to Virginia, a majority of them having been killed or died from the hardship of the campaign." Unfortunately, there is very little documentation available to confirm that William fought in the Revolution. The best that has been found so far is in a book called "Historical Register of Virginians in the Revolution" by John H. Gwathmey (Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, 1979; available on Ancestry.com). There is an entry on p. 835 for a “Willson, William (son of Robert)” from Augusta County who served in Capt. Long’s Company. Possibly there was another William Wilson/Willson in that time and place who also had a father named Robert, but there seems to be a good chance that this is our William. This also brings up that many of the old records from Augusta County for William and his sons have Wilson spelled with a double-l. It’s not very consistent, with sometimes single-l Wilson and double-l Willson in the same document. It seems to have settled down to Wilson sometime in the 1820s or 1830s, though I know of census records as late as 1870 with the Willson spelling.
There was actually more than one Captain Long from Augusta County in the Revolutionary War, but the one that seems most likely referred to here is Francis Long. The discussion of the Revolution in "Annals of Augusta County, Virginia, from 1726 to 1871" by Joseph A. Waddell (Second Edition, C. Russell Caldwell, Staunton, VA, 1902; obtained from http://www.archive.org/details/annalsofaugustac00wadd) has two main mentions of South Carolina: Several soldiers from Augusta County are noted to have been taken prisoner at Charleston on 12 May 1780, and units from Augusta County were involved in the battle of Cowpens in South Carolina on 17 Jan 1781. There is no indication that Capt. Long’s company was involved in those actions, but then all the information is very fragmentary. It is also possible that William was in Capt. Long’s company part of the time and in another company part of the time.
A very different story about William's service in the Revolutionary War is in a biography of Adair Wilson in "Pioneers of the San Juan Country" by Sarah Platt Decker Chapter, N.S.D.A.R., Durango, Colorado (Durango Printing Co., Durango, CO, 1952, Vol. III, pp. 167–168):
During the American Revolution, his paternal grandfather, William Wilson served under John Paul Jones, the brave old Scotsman, who was the first man to hoist an American flag on an American ship. With a navy consisting of three frail vessels, one with a half rotten hull, he boldly attacked and captured two British men of war. After this humiliating defeat the loud boast of the English, claiming England was “Mistress of the sea” was temporarily reduced to a mere whisper.
I’ve no idea what that is based on, but it seems unlikely that a landlubber from the Shenandoah Valley would have been in the navy.
It is clear from his father's will that William was under 21 at the time the will was written (9 Sep 1768). That means he was born after September 1747. In information from Katherine Bushman that James Hotchkiss passed on to me, in one place William is referred to as an infant, meaning under 14, at the time of his father's death. That would mean born after September 1754. A different entry for John Wilson in "California Pioneer and Immigrant Files, 1790-1950" on Ancestry.com shows his father as William Wilson (1750-1823). I don't think that 1823 could be right for his death because of the accounts of him moving to Missouri in 1824 or 1825, and his signature on daughter Nancy's marriage bond in 1824; 1750 is possible for his birth, but doesn’t have much credibility since the death year is probably wrong. An issue of the Fayette, MO, Intelligencer newspaper dated 9 Nov 1827 contained the following death notice (obtained from the State Historical Society of Missouri, Missouri Digital Newspaper Project; http://shs.umsystem.edu/newspaper/mdnp/index.shtml): "In this county, on the 14th ult. after a short illness, Mr. William Wilson, aged about 71 years." I have no way of knowing if this is the right William Wilson, but it fits with what I know. It would make his birth in about 1756.
Following is my transcription of a deed in Augusta County Deed Book 41, pp. 294-295. I have added some punctuation to try to make it more readable, but it's hard for me to make sense of the language in parts of it.
This Indenture, made the 23rd day of June in this year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventeen Between William Willson and Catha[r]ine his wife of the County of Augusta and State of Virginia of the one part and William Thompson of the County and State aforesaid of the other part, Witnesseth that the said William Willson and Catharine his wife for and in consideration of the sum of three thousand dollars lawful money of the State aforesaid, to them in hand paid by the said William Thompson, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged, traded [?] granted Bargained and sold and by these presents do grant bargain and sell unto the said Wm. Thompson his heirs and assigns a certain tract or parcel of land lying and being in the County of Augusta, on the head waters of the South river, containing by estimation two hundred acres be the same more or less, being a part of the same tract of land conveyed by Samuel Willson to Robert Willson by deed bearing date the 2nd day of June 1755 and devised by the said Robert Willson to his sons Robert and David Willson by his last will and testament bearing date the 9th day of Sept. 1768, a moiety whereof fell to the sd. David by the death of the said Robert without issue, he the said David being his heir at Law, whereby the said David became possessed of the legal title to the whole tract claimed as aforesaid, and which was afterwards devised by the said David Willson to the above named William Willson by his last will and testament bearing date the 25th day of January 1804, which said deeds and wills are duly admitted to records in the County Court office of Augusta, and which said two hundred acres of land is bounded as follows, to wit: Beginning at a white oak corner to David H... [?] and running thence with his line South twenty one and a third degrees West two hundred and Eleven poles to a Locust in Robert Tate’s line, thence with his line and a line of John Tate’s heirs South twenty one and two third degrees East one hundred and fifty two poles to a chesnut and hickory in the line of Tate’s heirs, thence a new line North twenty one and a third degrees East Two hundred and Eleven poles to a small hickory and sassafras, near a walnut pointer in Doak’s line, thence with the said Doak’s and David Strain’s line North Twenty one and two third degrees west one hundred and fifty two poles to the Beginning. Together with all and singular the appurtenances thereunto Belonging or in any wise appertaining. To have and to hold ... said tract or parcel of Land with its appurtenances unto the said William Thompson, his heirs and assigns to the only proper use and behoof of him, the said William Thompson, his heirs and assigns forever. And the said William Willson and wife for themselves, their heirs Execrs. and Adms. do covenant with the said Wm. Thompson, his heirs and assigns that they, the said Wm. Willson and wife, their heirs Execrs. & Adms. the said two hundred acres of land with its appurtenances unto the said William Thompson, his heirs and assigns against the claim or claims of them, the said William Willson and wife and their heirs, and of all and any person or persons whatsoever, shall and will warrant and forever defend by these presents. In testimony whereof the said Wm. Willson and wife have hereunto set their hands and seals the day and year first above written.
Wm. Willson
Catharine Wilson
Augusta County, to wit [?]
We Robert Doak and Joseph Brown Justices of the peace in the County aforesaid and State of Virginia do hereby certify that Catharine Willson the wife of William Willson parties to the foregoing deed for the conveyance of real Estate to William Thompson, bearing date the 23 day of June 1817, personally appeared before us in our County aforesaid and being examined by us privily and apart from her husband, and having the deed aforesaid fully explained to her, she the said Catharine Willson acknowledged the same to be her act and deed & declared that she had willingly signed sealed and delivered the same and that she wished not to retract it. Given under our hands and seals the 23rd day of June 1817.
Robert Doak
Jos. Brown
Augusta County Court Clerks offices June the 27th 1817. This deed of Bargain and sale from William Willson and Catharine his wife to William Thompson was presented in the Clerks office aforesaid, and being acknowledged before me, Vincent Tapp, deputy Clerk of the said Court, by said William Willson according to law is admitted to Record.
Test.
Vincent Tapp DCAC
At a Court held for Augusta County, July the 28th 1817, the acknowledgement of this deed of Bargain and sale being duly certified and reported to the Court is ordered to be entered in the minutes.
Test.
Erasmus Stribling CC
According to information from Katherine Bushman that James Hotchkiss passed on to me, the deed of 2 Jun 1755 referred to above was from Robert’s brother Samuel to Robert. It is in Deed Book 7, pp. 165-166 (3 Jun 1755). Samuel bought it from George and Robert Breckenridge on 8 Feb 1745 (Deed Book 1, p. 12). David Wilson's will, in which he left the land to William, is in Will Book 12, pp. 116-117 (25 Jan 1804, proved 22 Jan 1816).
The angles in the description of the tract of land make no sense to me. I thought that "South twenty one and a third degrees West" would mean 21 1/3 degrees west of south, but if all the angles are interpreted that way, the tract is a diamond shape that will not fit within the George & Robert Breckenridge land in the 1954 map of the Beverley Patent by J.R. Hildebrand. (The Beverley Patent, or Beverley Manor, was a large tract of land in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley obtained by William Beverley in 1736.) My second thought was to interpret it as 21 1/3 degrees south of west, but doing that consistently still results in an odd diamond shape, and if a pole is supposed to be the same as a rod (16.5 feet), then the area would only be about 137 acres. It appears to me that the tract is supposed to be a rectangle (or nearly a rectangle) with sides of 211 rods and 152 rods (which gives an area close to 200 acres), tilted at an angle of 21 1/3 degrees toward the east. Such a shape and orientation would fit nicely within the George & Robert Breckenridge land in Hildebrand's map. My initial thought was that the tract being called out is at the western end of the George & Robert Breckenridge land because the description of the boundary ends with a mention of “David Strain’s line” and there is a tract labelled D STRAIN at the northwest corner of the George & Robert Breckenridge land on the map. However, this is difficult to reconcile with the description of the whole 461 acres in the deed for Samuel Wilson’s purchase of the land from George & Robert Breckenridge. See the notes for Samuel Wilson. That deed says that Robert Breckenridge had the northwest end of the original 761-acre tract but Samuel’s purchase was of George Breckenridge’s portion of the land.Perhaps David Strain had moved or purchased additional land by 1817. There is a figure and additional discussion in the WilsonNotes document.
Unfortunately, William ran into financial difficulties. There is reference to this in a biography of son Robert Wilson in "Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar of Missouri" by W.V.N. Bay (F. H. Thomas and Company, St. Louis, 1878; obtained from Google Books). On p. 561, it says “Robert received a fair English education, and it was the intention of his father to give him a collegiate course, but, becoming financially embarrassed, he was forced to take his son from school.” The biography also says that Robert moved to Missouri in the spring of 1820, which was about the time these financial difficulties were coming to a head. The financial problems are documented in two Augusta County chancery-court cases involving William, Haupe v. Wilson and others (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/chancery/case_detail.asp?CFN=015-1821-064) and Little & Telford v. Wilson and others plus Brown v. Little & Telford and others (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/chancery/case_detail.asp?CFN=015-1832-026). These financial difficulties are probably why William sold part of his land in 1817, but the problems continued to get worse after that.
The information available in the court papers and various deeds of trust seems to show the debts arising from William’s brother David and William’s sons John and David rather than from William himself. The complaint by Henry Haupe, filed on 9 Sep 1820, stated that William’s brother David, with William as security, had borrowed $676.70 from Haupe on 25 Dec 1813. At the time of David’s death, he had not paid the money back, and Haupe wanted the remaining 260 acres sold, if necessary, to pay him back, with interest. Sons John and David borrowed a considerable amount of money from several people (see also the notes for John and David), and some of the loans were secured by William’s land and personal property, all the way down to feather beds and kitchen furniture. Haupe’s complaint stated that there were already three liens on William’s land: a deed of trust to Samuel Clarke dated 29 Jul 1819 to secure a debt to James Moffett (the deed of trust shows that this was a debt of William’s sons John & David along with William’s brother David), a deed of trust to Michael Garber Jr. dated 10 Aug 1819 to secure a payment due from sons John & David to Jeremiah & James Kyle of Richmond, and a deed of trust to William Clarke dated 1 Oct 1819 to secure a payment due from John & David to Adam & Samuel Grove (note that Samuel Grove was William’s son-in-law, having married William’s daughter Mary on 16 Nov 1818). What’s worse is, this wasn’t even a complete list of liens on William’s land, as a deed of trust to Preston Trotter dated 9 Oct 1819 to secure a debt by John & David to Little & Telford also listed William’s 261 acres as security. The 261 acres were apparently sold at auction by Michael Garber Jr. to Henry J. Tapp and John Garber for $1,600 (Augusta County Deed Book 45, pp. 385–387, dated 20 Nov 1820), who later sold it to John K. Moore (Augusta County Deed Book 47, pp. 72–73, dated 14 Nov 1822). There are more details on all of this in the chapter on Augusta County Details in my Wilson book. A big factor in the travails of John, David, and William is that property values crashed. This is probably reflected in the fact that William sold 200 acres of his land in 1817 for $3,000, but then the remaining 261 acres sold for only $1,600 in 1820. This crash in property values was likely because of the Panic of 1819, which was “arguably this country’s first modern business cycle” and “the first truly national depression America experienced” (p. 1 of Haulman [see below]).
There is a lot of information about the Panic, in particular as it affected Virginia, in "Virginia and the Panic of 1819: The First Great Depression and the Commonwealth" by Clyde A. Haulman (Pickering & Chatto, London, 2008). On p. 25 Haulman states:
Contemporary observers indicate that the Panic of 1819 was a traumatic experience for the new republic. For example, John C. Calhoun, discussing the situation with John Quincy Adams in 1820, said, “There has been within these two years an immense revolution of fortunes in every part of the Union: enormous numbers of persons utterly ruined; multitudes in deep distress; and a general mass disaffection to the government.”
…
The young nation’s “traumatic awakening to the capitalist reality of boom-and-bust” reported by these various sources was a complex combination of financial market volatility, swings in international market demand, and federal government financial activity. The actions of the Second Bank of the United States along with those of a number of state-chartered banks have received much scholarly attention.
Of most relevance here is this from p. 63:
Table 4.3 shows the value of real property as assessed in the City of Richmond for the years 1817–25. Here the impact of the Panic of 1819 on property values is clearly evident as assessments fell 49.1 per cent between 1818 and 1819 and decreased again by 50.1 per cent between 1819 and 1820 for a total decline of 74.6 percent in value of assessed property in the years between the peak in 1818 and the trough in 1820. By 1821 assessments had risen slightly, up 1.4 per cent, and in the following year the value of property continued to rise, up an additional 51.2 per cent. Thus, by 1822 assessed property values in Richmond had recovered somewhat from the trough reached in 1820, but assessments, despite their upward movement, still remained 61.1 per cent below their pre-Panic peak of almost $16 million in 1818. From this point until 1825, assessed real property values changed very little.
Note, however, that the timing of the real-estate crash could have been somewhat later over in the Shenandoah Valley. On p. 60, Haulman shows that a decline in commodity prices occurred somewhat later in western Virginia than in Richmond. John and David Wilson made their ill-fated land purchases in October 1818 and March 1819, possibly before land prices started to drop in Augusta County.
It is perhaps worth noting that there were six William Wilsons in the Augusta County land tax books during this time period. With occasional exceptions, the others were listed as Rev. William Wilson, Maj. William Willson, William Willson Esq., Capt. William Willson (noted once to be a son of the major), and William Wilson who was a resident of Rockbridge County. (In addition to these designations, the different Williams can be distinguished by their amount of land and its location.) Starting in 1818, our William was listed as William Willson Sr.
There were three William Wilsons in the 1820 census for Augusta County, VA (the land tax records for Augusta County show six William Wilsons during this time period). Two of the census listings were in the area of Waynesboro (Maj. William Wilson and Rev. William Wilson); the third was in the area of Greenville, with a listing of William Wilson (S. River).The deeds dated 1 Oct 1819 and 20 Nov 1820 that were referred to previously both stated that William was living on the 260/261-acre tract of land. Deeds and tax records described the 260/261 acres as being on the head waters of the South River, which fits nicely with the census listing near Greenville. That listing is as follows:
1820 census
Image 1 on Ancestry.com (Saunton [Staunton], Augusta Co., VA)
Listed as William Wilson (S. River). In the margin of this section, it says Greenville Augusta. Household consisted of four males (ages 45+, 26-44, 10-15, under 10) and 6 females (two aged 45+, one 16-25, two aged 10-15, and one under 10). Presumably the male aged 45+ was William and the male aged 10-15 was William Adair. John and David were already married by this time; the male aged 26-44 might have been Robert, but if so his age was marked wrong. I don't know who the under-10 male was. Presumably one of the females aged 45+ was Catharine and the female aged 16-25 was Nancy. Polly was already married by this time. I don't know who the other four females would have been (ages 45+, 10-15, 10-15, under 10). Also, one slave was listed, a male aged 14-25.
Note: Some of the information in these pages is uncertain. Please let me know of errors or omissions using the email link above. ...Mike Wilson
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