Individual Details

Thomas Wilson Jr.

(1834 - 1884)

THOMAS WILSON, of the firm of Usher & Wilson, Fremont, was born in Lorain County, Ohio, eighteen miles west of Cleveland, in 1834. When sixteen years old he went to Michigan, obtaining employment as driver on the stage lines in that State five years. He then went to Indiana, engaging in the same business about a year; he then returned to his home in Ohio, remaining about a year. He then came West, locating first at Palmyra, Mo., where he established the first drays in use there. He then went to Iowa, engaging in farming and stage business. In 1859, he married in Pottawattamie County, Iowa, Miss Elizabeth Clark. In the spring of 1860, he moved to Nebraska, locating on Maple Creek, in Dodge County, on a farm where he lived five years. His wife died in August, 1865. During this time he served about a year in Company A, Second Nebraska Volunteers, in Gen. Sulley's Indian campaign. In 1867, he opened the first livery stable in Fremont, carrying on the business until 1874, when he sold out, and moved to West Point, Neb., engaging in the same business four years. He returned to Fremont in March, 1878, and purchased the stable he had formerly owned, where he now carries on his livery business. He was burned out in 1879, and for a short time, while his stable was being rebuilt, he carried on the business at another stable. He has twenty-five head of horses and fifteen vehicles in his stable; does a general livery feed and sale business. His livery and feed business averages $300 per month, and his sales to $4,000 per year. He employs four men. Since June, 1881, he has also been a partner in the auction room of Usher & Wilson. He is a Democrat, and was twice elected City Marshal of Fremont, and has been Chief of Police of Fremont since April, 1881; he was also City Marshal at West Point for three years; was elected the fourth for the fourth term. In July, 1867, he married, in Dodge County, Neb., Miss Martha Glidon, a native of Cleveland, Ohio. They have three children--Wallace, Lucy and Alice.
Source: Andreas' History of the State of Nebraska - Dodge Co. - Part 10.

There was a Thomas Wilson born 18 September 1834, which may be him.
"United States Census, 1860," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/M6RF-1ZS : accessed 30 Jul 2013), Thos Wilson, 1860.
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Yes.. he [Thomas Wilson, Jr.] died I believe in N.C. with the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show where he was a horse trainer. We have a telegram from them wondering where to send his remains (by train)...they lived in Fremont, Nebraska.
Your family tree seems to jibe with what we know...I have a boat named after my great grandmother, Kate McGraw (your Catherine Platner McGraw)...she died at 37 due to medical malpractice. As a boy I knew my grandparents, Edward McGraw Spear and Lucia Wilson who lived well into their 90s...here they are (see attachment) in perhaps in the early fifties..with hat and Lucia to his right, our left. (that's me between them). "EM" was quite lucid up until his end at just shy of 100 years old...In his late to mid 90's I recall him shooting and hitting clay pigeons with a 12 gauge pump. He was a prison guard in Wisconsin at age 13 and from there headed west to around White Sulphur Springs Montana where he herded sheep and homesteaded in the 1880's or earlier. To get a sense of what this might have been like read "A House of Sky" by Ivan Doig....I like to think EM was in the generation who settled that valley...
Lucia had five boys with EM, all gone now, leaving only a handful of children and even less grandchildren. Despite her home being one of the nicest in Genoa, Nebraska, I remember her dutifully hand pumping water in the kitchen and boiling it for the dishes on a corn cob stove, again, in her nineties. She was a skilled elocutionist, and I believe as a girl won a prize for it. She could speak French they say, but I never heard it. If convinced it was really desired, she would recite moving poems at the end of a Sundaydinners such as "The Pig" or the "Wreck of the Hesperus" the boy on the burning deck and such like,  replete with dramatic intonations and theatrical devices including elaborate hand gestures. If you are counting on your genes for a long life you will be happy to know her sister Alice lived well into her nineties too! The message for the Wilson's seems to be, to stay away from horses and you will do fine.
I know you are Wilsons but I wish I knew more of the McGraws. One of them, a Col McGraw seems to have been a major figure in Detroit shortly after the Civil war...I assume they are Scotch Irish as McGraw doesn't seem to ring a bell with anyone in Scotland, and, emotionally we all seem to be a better fit with what I read about the Scotch Irish sorts. 
The Spears trace back to George Spear from England, (but of Scottish descent ..Spy-er..the Lookout) in Braintree, MA AND VT! In the 1650's or so...You might have heard about (the mistaken in my opinion) geography of Cape Spear..said to be the "Easternmost" point in North America. My hope still is to do something famous enough in Alaska to warrant the naming of the "Westernmost" point of North America on Amatignak Island something with Spear in it..Point Spear, or better yet, Spear Point or whatever...to complete the book-ends of this four century long journey across the continent...but alas, in my fifty years here I am afraid I have made too many enemies. (the "Wilson's" for instance below me here in Juneau are just completing a seven foot high spite fence to shut out even eye contact.) oh, BTW the Easternmost would be somewhere on Amchitka I. And that status was celebrated the year I got here with the explosion on it of an atomic, or was it a hydrogen? Bomb?
Tired of all this? Well, who can blame you..but, it is what you get when you go poking around in the brush with a stick...
Cheers Wm Spear

Events

Birth1834Lorain County, Ohio
Census (family)-shared1840(Thomas Wilson and Jane) Avon, Lorain County, Ohio
Census (family)-shared17 Sep 1850(Thomas Wilson and Jane) Avon, Lorain County, Ohio
Marriage27 Nov 1859Mills County, Iowa - Elizabeth Clark
Census (family)19 Jun 1860Jalapa, Dodge County, Nebraska - Elizabeth Clark
MarriageJul 1867Dodge County, Nebraska - Martha Blood Glidden
Census (family)2 Aug 1870Fremont, Dodge County, Nebraska - Martha Blood Glidden
Census (family)17 Jun 1880Fremont, Dodge County, Nebraska - Martha Blood Glidden
Death1884
BurialRidge Cemetery, Fremont, Dodge County, Nebraska

Families

SpouseElizabeth Clark (1840 - 1864)
ChildClara J. Wilson (1861 - 1864)
ChildWalter M. Wilson (1863 - 1864)
SpouseMartha Blood Glidden (1842 - 1896)
ChildWallace H. Wilson (1867 - 1940)
ChildCassie M. Wilson (1870 - 1871)
ChildLucia Mary Wilson (1872 - 1963)
ChildAlice B. Wilson (1874 - 1973)
FatherThomas Wilson ( - 1868)
MotherJane (1805 - 1887)
SiblingAnn Wilson (1827 - 1868)
SiblingWilliam Slater Wilson (1829 - 1890)
SiblingMary Wilson (1832 - 1835)
SiblingWilson (1836 - 1836)
SiblingRebecca A. Wilson (1837 - 1915)
SiblingJohn Henry Wilson (1840 - 1869)
SiblingHarrison E. Wilson (1843 - 1895)
SiblingEunice E. Wilson (1845 - 1928)
SiblingArthur Wilson (1849 - 1869)

Notes

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