Article
contributed by
Lu
Hickey
Benjamin
Wilson, although he left Randolph county soon after its
formation, was one of the most widely know and influential men
the county has had in its century or more of existence. The
following biography is from the American Historical Record,
1873, edited by Benson J. Lossing:
Colonel Benjamin Wilson was born in Frederick County, now
Shenandoah County Virginia, November 30, 1747. His father,
William Wilson, was a Scotch-Irishman who emigrated from the
Province of Ulster Ireland, in 1737 and in that or the
following year settled in the Shenandoah Valley Virginia,
where in 1746, he married Elizabeth Blackburn whose family was
also of Scotch -Irish origin. Before Benjamin had passed his
early childhood yeas his father's family was permanently
located on Trout run near the South Branch of the Potomac,
then in Frederick, now Hardy County West Virginia, 30 miles
from Winchester. Here Benjamin reached his manhood. Little is
known of him during his minority except that he made himself
useful on his father's farm at Trout Run. His opportunities to
acquire an education were very limited but he devoted his
leisure hours to studies, which tended to fit him for a
successful business career. On September 4, 1770, he married
Ann Ruddell and soon thereafter became a resident of Tygart's
Valley in what is now Randolph county W.VA.
In 1774 he was attached as a lieutenant to the right wing of
Lord Dunsmore's army which marched against the old Chillicothe
towns on the Scioto River. For a time he served as an aid to
Lord Dunmore, the commander-in -chief.. He rendered very
efficient service during the campaign, a competent and
reliable authority declaring that he acquired by his zeal and
attention to duty the confidence of his superior officers.
Early in the Revolution he was appointed to a captaincy in the
Virginia forces, doing duty mainly on the frontiers; and to
the close of the revolutionary struggle he was the organ
through which most of the military and civil business of the
part of the State in which he resided and transacted. He
frequently served as commander of the forces raised to pursue
marauding parties of Indians and in all these expeditions he
was prompt, influential and conspicuously courageous, as well
as prudent and judicious. His distinguished abilities secured
him a colonel's commission in 1781. At the close of the
Revolutionary War he served for several session in the
Legislature of Virginia, from the count of Monongalia.
In 1784 he secured the organization of Harrison County, it
being taken from the county of Monongalia. He was then
appointed the first clerk of the county of Harrison, but his
duties as such did not with draw him from other public duties,
nor from politics, although he retained the office until near
the close of his life. He was elected and served as a delegate
in the Convention of Virginia in March 1788, which ratified
the Constitution of the United States. He was a Federalist in
politics and was one of the acknowledged leaders of the
Federal party in Western Virginia until the close of the war
of 1812 when party lines were obliterated, and parties
themselves were dissolved the consummation being the election
of James Monroe to the Presidency of the United States.
"Colonel Wilson was a man of varied and extensive
business operations, of much general information, of genial
temper, of stalwart person, of most dignified bearing, of
undoubted patriotism, of unimpeachable integrity of character
and of the elegance that characterized the true Virginia
gentleman of the old school. He was not unmindful of the
claims of religion upon him and he sustained to the close of
his life an irreproachable Christian character."
Randolph County had two delegates in that famous convention,
Colonel Benjamin Wilson and his brother John. The other
members from what is now West Virginia were Berkeley County,
William Drake and Adam Stephen; Greenbrier, George Glendenin
and John Stuart; Hampshire, Alexander Wodrow and Ralph
Humphreys; Harrison, George Jackson and John Prunty; Hardy,
Isaac Van Meter and Abel Seymour; Jefferson, Robert
Breckenridge and rice Bullock; Mercer, Thomas Allen and
Alexander Robertson; Monogalia, John Evans and William
McCleary; Ohio, Archibald Woods and Ebenezer Zane.
As shown in the case of this record, slender is the thread by
which many a valuable historical item is preserved. The dates
of the births of William Wilson's children were found on a
blank leaf of an old book: "Record of the Fifth
Congress".now in the possession of Lewis Wilson of
Phillipi who supplied the information for his book. Col.
Benjamin Wilson of Clarksburg furnished the dates of the
deaths. No one know when or by whom the record was written on
the leaf of the old book, but it was there by preserved and
numerous descendants--perhaps hundreds--of William Wilson are
thereby enabled to trace their family back to the old country.
These descendants are found throughout West Virginia and many
states.
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