Individual Details
(23 Sep 1803 - 16 Apr 1864)
Anti-slavery abolitionist and conductor on the Underground Railroad at the final terminus in Ontario, Canada; philanthropist, and educator. He founded schools and worked to assist formerly-enslaved people to gain the knowledge and skills they needed for freedom. He was a delegate to the 1843 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, England. Hiram Wilson attended Oneida Institute in upstate New York, Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Oberlin College, where he received a theology degree from the seminary in 1836. Upon graduation, Oberlin president Charles Finney encouraged him to go to Canada to work with the 20,000 African Americans who had settled there in flight from American slavery. With others, he established the British-American Institute, in the Dawn Fugitive Slave settlement. Leaving it, he relocated to St. Catherines, Ontario, and with his second wife Mary opened an American Missionary Association night school. There, they provided aid, religious teaching, and education to individuals traveling north to escape slavery, and received groups such as the 11 freedom seekers who came with Harriet Tubman in 1851. There are a number of sources and publications about the life of Hiram Wilson available on the internet. Online searching yields a Wikipedia article, articles from contemporary publications and archives documents, a webpage at the Oberlin College website, and several online projects about his life. His letters are housed at the Oberlin College archives. The many online biographies lightly mirror one another, but appear to stem from the biographical sketch that prefaces his papers at Oberlin College archives. He was the son of John Wilson and Polly McCoy. He married first, Hannah Maria Hubbard. She died by the spring of 1847, and is interred at Dawn Mills, Canada (presumably at the British American Institute Cemetery.) He married second Mary. He had five children (according to the Wikipedia article) including John J. Wilson (b. 1841), Lydia M Wilson (b. 1842), Mary Ellen Wilson (b. 1844), and George Sturge Wilson (b. 1847). Woodland Cemetery records list his date of interment as July 6, 1866, and his data as 60, W, male, native of US, infection of lungs, Sec 21 Lot 55, NW corner. Both he and Lydie Wilson are listed in Woodland Cemetery records as coming from "St. Catherine Cem." Therefore, it appears they were moved to Woodland from St. Catherines Cemetery in Ontario, Canada.
Events
| Birth | 23 Sep 1803 | Acworth, New Hampshire | | | |
| Marriage | 17 Sep 1838 | Hannah Hubbard | | | |
| Death | 16 Apr 1864 | St Catherine's, Niagra, Ontario, Canada | | | |
Families