Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 453
LUCIAN WILSON

Lucian WILSON, settled on section 16, of Washington Township, in the spring of 1867, where he bought a quarter-section of wild land, and built a frame house, 14x18 feet, one story and a half high, to which he has made two additions. At the time of his coming to this locality, there was but little improvement in what is now Washington Township. There was a log school house at WALKERS' Grove, and a few settlers living here and there; but generally speaking, this part of the country was a sea of prairie grass. Since coming to the county, he has added to his farm until he now has a half section of well-improved land. Four years after coming in, there was a schoolhouse built within one mile of his place. At first he had to go to Logan or Woodbine to trade, but upon the construction of the Rock Island Road, he went to Neola and Shelby, until the building of the Milwaukee lines through Persia.

Our subject comes from good old Puritan stock, and was born February 16, 1835, in Berkshire county, Mass. At the age of nineteen went out into the world for himself, and followed agriculture, until he came to Harrison County.

He was married in the county of his nativity, March, 1856, to Miss Mary CHURCHILL, by whom two children have been born, Adaline L., and a boy which was still-born. The mother, for reasons best known to themselves, did not come West, but the little daughter did, and has lived a portion of the time in this county with her father, but is now married and living in York State. After coming West, Mr. Wilson obtained a divorce, and married Miss Frances PLACE, of York State, with whom he had been acquainted since he was a child. She died in 1869, leaving him with a girl baby, Sophronia Amanda, one year old, who died in 1889, with typhoid fever.

He married his present wife, Sara C. SHAW, a resident of Harrison Co., in 1872.

The father of our subject, James WILSON, was born in Berkshire County, Mass., in 1803, and died in the same county during the month of August, 1880.  
The mother of our subject, Amanda (GARFIELD) WILSON, was born in Berkshire County, Mass., and died in the same county.

Politically, our subject is in sympathy with the Republican party. In his religious views, was raised a Methodist, but never united with the church.

Mr. WILSON does a general farming and stock-raising business, and is a breeder of Hereford cattle, having a present eighty head, every one of which are white-face, and, as a herd, this looked upon as the finest in Western Iowa. Every acre of this man's farm is under the plow, except what is in tame grass, with about ten acres timber.

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