The Wilson Family
As Told By Sarah Wilson of Janesville, Wisc.
November, 1954
Transcribed by Danielle Mead Skjelver
Father was sick for 5 years, not down, but just unable to work or be out very much and lots of times after I got home from work, I would sit with my Father and he would talk about olden times. They say that is where you can tell a person’s age. He sat there and talked and of course I got a little interested and would ask questions, which pleased him, and I would say, “Well what about the Wilson Family Father?”
It seems the Wilsons were of Scotch-Irish descent. He came from the border on Scotland. They were born in the late 1700 and in 1800 or a little later they came to America and settled in a place called Stamford, Ontario, Canada. They spelled Wilson, WILLSON. Father was born near here. He had 3 sisters, Ann, Kathryn, and Abigail. Father’s father was a lawyer and he didn’t keep up his practice the way he should. His health wasn’t good and he died while my Father was 10 years old. His Mother was left without much of anything when his Father died. There was an Uncle on the Spencer side of the family that helped Mother out. The girls worked too. They all married.
Father’s Uncle Alex Spencer, owned a great deal of land about 12 miles from Niagara Falls. He was what they called a large landowner. More than half of it was fruit land and they had a beautiful home and if my Father could have made his mind up to stay with his Uncle, I am sure he would have inherited a large share, but he began to feel that he would like to get out and see the United States. Uncle Alex Spencer didn’t care much for the United States and hated to have him go, but it didn’t make quite so much difference because after he left they had a daughter and his uncle died.
Father started out when he was 21 years old and went to Buffalo, New York, then to Troy, New York. He found work there and finally got into the Big Blacksmith Shop at SING SING as Boss. He wrote back to his Mother in Canada and he says, “Mother I regret very much to tell you I am in SING SING.” She went right away to her Daughter Abigail – Get yourself ready as quickly as you can for tomorrow we start for Sing Sing. They got ready and went; and, of course, when they found out that he was one of the bosses, they didn’t know that and pretnear fainted away. He stayed at a Boarding House where my Mother was well acquainted with these people and that is where she met my Father at Troy, New York.
After Father lived there at Troy, he wanted to look up some places he could settle in business. A country settlement was better, so he went to Lafayette, Indiana and stayed there about a year and at that time my Mother had moved to Rochester, New York, and he wrote to her to come out there and they were married by the Justice of Peace. Mother was never pleased about being married this way by the Justice of Peace. Mother’s health was poor all the time they were there. She had rheumatism. They thought it would be better to get father west where it would be drier. It was low and damp there, so Mother went back to Rochester.
Father was standing at the dock one day at Lafayette, Indiana. He saw a boat come up to the dock to be loaded and saw a name on a box, McGee, Janesville, Wisconsin. He wondered why it wouldn’t be a good place to go and he came to Wisconsin. Mother had better health here.
Father bought out a Blacksmith Shop near the old City Hall. He didn’t stay there long until he bought property on Dodge and River Street. He bought property clear up to Franklin Street, that is where the old Post Office stands. He had a good business. He had 100 wagons stored up in this building, which was of wood construction. There was a stair in the back on the inside where they always swept down the wood shavings to start the fire in the forge on Monday morning. Some devils broke a window and got inside and started the shavings on fire. The City had just bought new fire equipment and they wanted to see it go. The fire equipment was steam, and drawn by horses. The building went up in smoke in a short time. Father didn’t think that he had insurance. Several weeks before this time, a friend of his by the name of hart had said to him, “I think that you should have this hop insured.” Father said it would cost too much. Hart went ahead and sent insurance papers to Milwaukee, and as soon as he heard about the fire he paid for the insurance. He had $1000.00 insurance on this building. He then took the $1000.00 and used it as a down payment to build the 3 story brick building and mortgaged the rest.
We lived just a short distance from the river and Mother was after father all the time to get away from the river because of the children. One day he came home and said, “You scratch up what we have in these rooms; we are moving three blocks up the street from here.” I was 5 years old then and could just press my nose against the window.
There were 8 children in our family. The first baby was a girl born in 1854, Sarah Ellen. She lived a short time. She was buried in Rochester, New York, and was buried in my Grandfather Spencer’s lot. Then there were the twins a boy and girl, William and Ellen born in 1856 in Janesville. They lived to be 3 months old. There was an epidemic of Cholera and phantom. There was 2 days difference in their death. Will was next, born in 1857 and died in 1930. Then came George, then I was next (Sarah), then Frank and then Mary born in 1866 and died in 1936. Father was born in 1823 and died February 10, 1902.
My mother came from a little country town called Bath, England. She came to this country when she was 7 years old, in a sailing vessel. Her Mother was so sick that she had to bathe her head all the time. She thought that they were going to have to bury her mother at sea. It took about 8 weeks to come over on the sailing vessel. There were her Mother, Father and 2 other children in the family. In England, Grandfather was in charge of the vineyards. There were 9 children altogether. Three girls and six boys. They all lived around Rochester, New York, except on of them who lived around Cincinnati. Mother was a Methodist an Father was an Episcopalian. Grandma Wilson was Elizabeth Taplan.
I have heard Grandmother say that Mother was a strong Methodist and when Frank came along he had to be baptized. I will never forget the rig-a-ma-roll that he had on. He had a dress on that was tucked from the neck to the hem and it swept the floor.
One day Mother said to Father, “Now you get ready for I am going to Church in the morning and you are going with me down to the Methodist Church.” Father said, “Why some of the biggest skali-wags go to the Methodist Church.”
“Maybe my hair needs cutting Sally.” (He always called me this.) I hated to cut those curls off, and of course I wasn’t any Barber. I cut it so high up that his neckline was half-way up his head.
Father was a great hunter. We had several dogs. In fact a lot of the Janesville men came to get Father and go hunting. They would be gone three to four days.
Frank had a dog named Jack. He was a regular Mongrel. He was smart alright and of course he thought an awful lot of Frank. They used to go out in the woods and shoot rabbit. They had to cross the railroad tracks. One day Frank and a neighbor boy went hunting, so jack went with them. They watched for the train. They saw it coming and hurried and crossed the tracks. The dog seeing them on the other side of the track and thinking he would be left, ran into the train and cut two legs off and Frank had to bury him. He came home nearly heart broke.
Frank and Mr. Tobin, who had learned the trade in my Father’s Shop, went to Huron, South Dakota. Frank was around 19 years of age when they opened up this shop. A year later George went out there and became partners with them. George was always interested in water and didn’t like it too well in South Dakota and business was falling off, so he and Frank left Mr. Tobin and came to Sioux City. George opened up the Box Factory and frank started the Wagon business on Pearl Street. I visited them in Huron. I went there in the fall and was unable to get back to Janesville until after the first part of the year. They had the blizzard of 1888.
Transcriber’s Note: This “Wagon Business” was the forerunner of Wilson Trailer Company. Frank was Frank Taplan Wilson.
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