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Silas Wilson
Cass County
Born in Marshall County, Virginia, May 16, 1846. Mr. Wilson was the eleventh child in the family of twelve children, and grew to manhood in his native State, receiving but a limited education in the common schools. West Virginia, then a part of Virginia, was a slave State, and those not possessed of wealth and the owner of slaves had no social position, so it can be conceived that the boyhood and youth of Mr. Wilson was not one of roses without the thorns. Like his father, he had to work for a living but a change was rapidly approaching. The dark war-clouds that had been hovering over the country had broken and the States were in deadly conflict. When the first blow was struck, he was yet under fifteen years of age, too young to enlist. That part of Virginia, now West Virginia, was loyal to the Union, and the patriotic heart of young Mr. Wilson was stirred within him. In August 1862, when barely sixteen years of age, he enlisted as a private in Company A, Seventh West Virginia Volunteer Infantry, and, with his regiment, was actively engaged until nearly the close of the war, participating in a number of engagements. He was mustered out and honorably discharged in July 1865. Returning home Mr. Wilson remained there until September following, when he removed to Washington County, Iowa, where he worked on a farm by the month for a year and a half, and then, in the spring of 1867, he went to Madison County, Iowa, locating at Patterson, where he purchased four acres of land and engaged in the nursery business. He remained at Patterson until the spring of 1871, when he sold out and came to Atlantic and purchased land, which he set out in nursery stock. In June, 1885, he was elected president of the American Association of Nurserymen at Indianapolis, Indiana. He was president and treasurer of the Iowa State Horticultural Society for four years. In politics, Mr. Wilson is a Republican, with which party he has acted during his entire life. He was elected by that party a member of the Twenty-first, Twenty-second and Twenty-third General Assemblies, representing Cass County. He was proffered the nomination for the fourth time, but refused to accept the nomination. In 1875, Mr. Wilson was united in marriage with Miss Edna Aylesworth, a native of Lake County, Illinois. Fraternally, Mr. Wilson is a member of General Sam Rice Post, No. 6, G. A. R. Religiously he is a member of the United Presbyterian Church and is a member of the Session.
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