A Wilson Family Tree
Notes for David S. Wilson
Middle initial is from the biographies of Robert H. Wilson in "History of Saline County, Missouri" and "Portrait and Biographical Record of Lafayette and Saline Counties, Missouri", among other places. The biography in "Portrait and Biographical Record of Lafayette and Saline Counties, Missouri" says that the family had eight children, three boys and five girls. If that is the case, then there is one other daughter not listed here. The Ancestral File listed a son named James Patton Willson, born before 1820. That doesn't fit with the statement about three sons, and it also doesn't fit with David and Margaret being married in June 1819.
The children listed here are the same as listed on the Foster/Reid Family Tree web site. John and Robert are listed in biographies in "History of Saline County, Missouri". Robert, Julia, and A.G. are listed in "Portrait and Biographical Record of Lafayette and Saline Counties, Missouri". Margaret, Paulina, Andrew, and Juliett are in census listings. Eliza is listed in Foster/Reid but not in any of those other sources. In legal papers associated with settlement of the estate of David's brother-in-law, Givens Kinnear (available online at http://www.lva.virginia.gov/chancery/case_detail.asp?CFN=163-1851-020), a court hearing on 9 Aug 1848 is described, in which James Reid (husband of Eliza Jane Wilson Reid, who had already passed away) was chosen and appointed guardian of the minor heirs of David S. Wilson, deceased. Robert, Margaret, and Paulina are listed as heirs over the age of 14, and Givens and Julia are listed as heirs under 14 years of age. The guardianship was for the purposes of looking after their interests in the estate of Givens Kinnear. James Reid was also appointed guardian of his own son, David William Reid, as the heir of Eliza Jane Reid, deceased. John W. Wilson was not listed, as he was already over 21. If there was another daughter in the family, as mentioned above, she must also have been already over 21.
"History of Saline County" says that David fought in the War of 1812, and moved to Saline Co., MO, in 1830 (see notes for sons John W. and Robert H.).
There are several Augusta County deeds of trust involving debts of David and his brother John to various people in the years from 1815 to 1820. Their debts also figured in two Augusta County chancery-court cases, 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). At least some of the borrowed money was used to buy property, presumably for investment. In particular, in 1819 John and David bought property in and around the town of Waynesborough, including a tavern, from William Brown for $3,250, which they were to pay in installments up through February 1827. However, Brown’s court complaint in 1826 said that shortly after he sold the land to them the Wilsons became insolvent and abandoned the property, and they had not made any of the payments. A deed of trust dated 25 Apr 1820 from John and David to sheriff James McNutt mentions that they had been trading under the firm of John & David Wilson. That deed of trust appears to be them basically declaring bankruptcy and forfeiting loan collateral. There are affidavits along with Brown’s complaint stating that the land Brown sold the Wilsons would probably not sell for more than $2,000 in 1826, if even that much. So John and David (and William, because he had secured some of their loans) were stuck and couldn’t make the payments even by selling the property. This drop in land value was likely caused by the Panic of 1819; see the notes for William Wilson. The court papers show that the court appointed a commissioner to oversee John’s and David’s property starting in 1821. Presumably, the property finally reverted to Brown in 1827. Note that John probably moved to Missouri in 1820 or 1821, but David remained in Virginia until 1830. There are more details on all of this in the chapter on Augusta County Details in my Wilson book.
David apparently continued to have financial problems. The Library of Virginia has online copies of old chancery-court records, like the ones referred to above. I will mention a couple of others here; in each case, the file can be obtained from http://www.lva.virginia.gov/chancery/case_detail.asp?CFN=xxx, where xxx is the file ID (for example, the case above is 163-1851-020, where 163 indicates Rockbridge County, 1851 is the year of the final resolution of the case, and 020 indicates that it is the 20th case for 1851). In 1835 I have found two cases, Tompkins v. Willson (163-1835-004) and Stevens v. Willson (163-1835-005), which both had the purpose of subjecting "the Interest of David S Willson & Margaret his wife, in the Estate of Nancy Kinnear dec'd to a debt due the Plaintiff". Nancy Kinnear was a sister of David's wife, Margaret. When Margaret's brother, Givens Kinnear, died in 1838, he said in his will "the interest of the sum of fifteen hundred dollars is to be given yearly to my Sister Margaret Wilson & her offspring, for ten years[,] the principle to be given to her heirs". The executor of Givens' estate, William Davidson (husband of Givens' and Margaret's sister, Susan), in a statement dated 4 Oct 1844 at the beginning of the Kinnear v. Thompson case (163-1851-020), said that "his [Givens'] object was to provide to the extent of his means for the support, and comfortable maintenance of his sister and her children. The Husband of Mrs Wilson had for years been deeply embarrassed, and was in fact hopelessly insolvent, and [Givens] knew well that if the money went into his hands, his sister and her family would receive no benefit therefrom." There is no indication of the cause of the insolvency. It sounds like he incurred additional debts after the ones with his brother John.
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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