My Genealogy Hound

Joseph G. Wilson, M. D., the leading physician of Lafayette Township, was born in Southampton County, Va., August 16, 1815, a son of Benjamin and Martha (Luter) Wilson, natives of Virginia. Benjamin Wilson was born in 1790, in same county as our subject, a son of James and Patience (Gray) Wilson. James Wilson was born in England, and emigrated to this country with his parents when he was still a boy. He was a soldier in the Revolutionary War, and participated in the battles of Bunker Hill, Yorktown and Brandywine, being wounded in the calf of the leg in the first named battle. Dr. Wilson thinks he served in Lee’s army. He died in 1827 at an advanced age. Benjamin Wilson was a soldier in the War of 1812, in which he held a commission as captain of a company stationed at Crany Island, and served throughout the war. He was an old Virginia planter, owning 400 acres of land, and a few slaves. He died in 1839, a member of the Methodist Protestant Church. The mother of our subject died in 1846. They were the parents of twelve children, all of whom lived to maturity and six are still living. They are Sarah (widow of Daniel Robins, of Alabama), Rebecca (widow of Becam Bonner, of Texas), Joseph G. (the subject of this sketch), Wiley I. (a farmer of Louisiana), Benjamin B. (farmer of Columbia County), Adalina (widow of H. Smith, of Columbia County). Dr. Wilson was reared on a farm in Alabama, to which State his father had moved in 1818. In 1834 he married, and the same year he entered a farm in Autauga County, Ala., and commenced farming for himself. In 1846 he came to this State, locating in this county and township, buying an improved farm of 320 acres on which he remained ten years. He then removed to Columbia County, where he remained until 1866, when he returned to this township and purchased his present farm, five and one half miles south of Camden, which at that time comprised 220 acres of land, with but few improvements, on which he still resides, having seventy acres under cultivation. Dr. Wilson has been twice married: First, in 1834, to Miss Penny Rodgers, a native of South Carolina, born in 1815, daughter of Jonathan Rodgers, and sister of Ephriam Rodgers, whose sketch appears elsewhere in this work. She was a member of the Protestant Methodist Church, and died in 1854, leaving a family of eleven children, seven of whom are still living, viz.: Jonathan (a farmer in Louisiana), James (deceased), William (deceased), Flavious J. (now farming in Columbia County), Virginia Alabama (now Mrs. Mitchell, of Louisiana), Mary Ann (deceased), Wells H. (farming in Garland County), Theodore (was killed in a cyclone), Martha (is now Mrs. Ostery, of this township), Paton B. (is farming in Garland County), and Max is deceased. In 1850 Dr. Wilson was again married, this time to Frances Elizabeth Rollison, born in Alabama in 1835, a daughter of Rufus Rollison, a resident of Alabama, and the fruits of this latter marriage were seven children, six still living, viz.: Ellen A. (the widow of B. Riley, now living with her father), Julia (now Mrs. Fogh of this township), Polly (now Mrs. Fobes, of this township), Edward, Nathaniel and Clarence (at home). The Doctor, although advanced in years, served six months in the Confederate army, enlisting in 1804 in Fagans’ regiment and served until the close of the war. He also had six sons in the Confederate army, two of whom lost their lives for the cause. Jonathan Wilson was in twenty-two general engagements. Dr. Wilson commenced the study of medicine at his home about 1850 while engaged in farming in this county, studying it for his own enjoyment, not intending to practice, but in 1860 he took out a license and has ever since been engaged in the practice of medicine. He has gained an excellent reputation all through the country, and at the present time has a larger practice, and travels over more territory than any other physician in the county. Both the Doctor and wife are church members, the former worshiping at the Protestant Methodist and the latter at the Baptist Church. In his political views the Doctor affiliates with the Democratic party.