HISTORY OF KENTUCKY AND KENTUCKIANS, E. Polk Johnson, three volumes, Lewis
Publishing Co., New York & Chicago, 1912. Common version, 
Vol. III, pp. 1255-56-57.   [Full page photograph of Rev. Wilson included 
with bio.]   [Jefferson County]

REV. SAMUEL R. WILSON, D.D.--One of the ablest divines of the
Presbyterian church during the most critical years of its growth in the
nineteenth century was the Reverend Samuel R. Wilson, D.D., of Louisville.
For fourteen years from March 12, 1865, to December 9, 1878, he was pastor
of the First Presbyterian Church in that city.  His high character,
unflinching courage, varied learning, masterful intellect, and
extraordinary oratorical and argumentative powers, as well as his entire
devotion to the exacting duties of his high calling, have been universally
recognized by all who knew him or felt the influence of his commanding
personality during his long and useful ministry.  Richard H. Collins, the
Kentucky historian, has said of him that he was "one of the ablest men in
the pulpit and one of the greatest in controversy in the State of Kentucky"
and that "he and his co-laborers in the same city made the Presbyterian
pulpit of Louisville for years by far the ablest in any city in the United
States, New York possibly excepted."
     His grandfather, Dr. Henry Wright Wilson, was a native of Annapolis,
Maryland, born about 1720; educated as a physician, and died near New
London, Bedford County, Virginia, in the winter of 1777-78.  His death was
occasioned by typhus, or "camp fever," contracted while attending the
sick soldiers of the Revolutionary army.
     If the genealogist traces his lineage back three generations farther
he meets James Wilson, of Calvert County, Maryland, whose ancestors are
supposed to have come from England, or Scotland, about 1660, and first
settled in Virginia.  Major Josiah Wilson, son of James, was long a man of
public influence.  He served as high sheriff of Prince George's and of
Ann Arundel counties, Maryland; was an alderman and incorporator under the
first charter of Annapolis, granted by Queen Anne in 1708; and for several
terms, and at the time of his death in November, 1717, was a member of the
Lower House of the Maryland General Assembly.  He married Martha Lingan,
and their son, Josiah Wilson, Jr., wedded Elizabeth Sprigg, daughter of
Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Sprigg and his wife, Margaret (Mariartee), all
of Calvert and Prince George's counties, Maryland.  The son of Josiah
Wilson, Jr., became the Dr. Wilson who lost his life, from disease,
contracted while in attendance upon the soldiers of the Revolution.
     Joshua L. Wilson, son of Dr. Henry Wright Wilson was born in Bedford
County, Virginia, September 22, 1774, and died in Cincinnati, Ohio, August
14, 1846.  His mother, who was born Agnes Lacy, was a native of Hanover
county, Virginia, a sister of Rev. Drury Lacy and first-cousin of "Father"
David Rice, both Presbyterian clergymen of prominence and the latter
widely known as the leading pioneer apostle of that church in Kentucky. Dr.
Joshua L. Wilson was closely identified with the establishment and progress
of Presbyterianism in Ohio, by virtue of his long connection with the First
Presbyterian church of Cincinnati, of which he was pastor for thirty-eight
years (1808-1846).  Before moving to Ohio, he resided in Kentucky, for
nearly twenty-seven years, from October, 1781, to May, 1808.  In 1839 he
officiated as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Old School
Presbyterian church.  His maternal uncle, Rev. Drury Lacy, and his cousins,
Rev. Dr. John Holt Rice, Rev. Dr. Benjamin H. Rice, Rev. Dr. Nathan L.
Rice, and Rev. Dr. Moses D. Hoge, have all filled the Moderator's chair.
Owing to his unusual height and imposing presence, Dr. Wilson was commonly
known as "the pulpit giant."  In his book of the "Personal Memories," Hon.
E. D. Mansfield, of Cincinnati, has said of him--"After making due
allowance for generals, lawyers, and merchants, there was no man in the
Cincinnati of that day more noted, more respected, or more remarkable than
Rev. Dr. Joshua L. Wilson.  His name and acts in society were known to
everybody.  He was a man amiable in character, just in life, of great
authority, and scarcely less pugnacity.  With strong opinions and strong
character, he thought what was worth preaching was worth fighting for.  So,
though no Ishmaelite, his hand was uplifted against the Ishmaelites when
they came in his way.  He was a beloved pastor in his own congregation,
respected by the people, and died much lamented."  He married Sarah B.
Mackay, a native of Baltimore, Maryland, and the only child of George and
Margaret Mackay.
     His son, Samuel R. Wilson, D.D., the subject of his sketch, was born
June 4, 1818, in Cincinnati, and died at Louisville, Ky., March 3, 1886.
He was maned for a favorite family physician, Samuel Ramsay, M.D., long
an active and prominent practitioner of medicine in Cincinnati.  Through
his mother he could trace a French and Scotch-Irish descent, his maternal
grandmother being a Marylander of Huguenot origin, and his grandfather,
George Mackay, being a native of Belfast, Ireland.  On his father's side,
his ancestry was English, Norman-French, and Welsh.
     Samuel Ramsay Wilson attended a school at Oxford, Ohio, conducted by
Rev. Robert H. Bishop., D.D., later enter Hanover College, Indiana, as a
Junior in the fall of 1834, and graduated from that institution with the
A.B. degree, September 27, 1836.  After a year's intermission, he became a
student at the Princeton Theological Seminary and, after completing the
full three years' course, was conferred upon him by Hanover College, in
1843, and the degree of Doctor of Divinity by Miami University, Ohio, in
1856.  He was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of New Brunswick, N. J.
August 5, 1840.  The same year he became Assistant Pastor of his father in
the First Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati.  On April 26th, 1842, he was
ordained by the Presbytery of Cincinnati, and about the same time was made
full co-pastor with his father of the First church. This relation continued
until the latter's death in 1846.  From 1846 to March, 1861, Dr. Samuel R.
Wilson was sole pastor of the same church.  Upon resigning this charge, he
accepted a call from the Grand (now the Fourth) Street Presbyterian church,
of New York City.  Impaired health, however, necessitated his resignation
in January, 1863.  For about fifteen months, while recuperating, he
occupied the pulpit of the Mulberry Presbyterian church in Shelby County,
Kentucky.  This period was probably the happiest of his life and to this
famous country church and the noble people in the neighborhood, of which it
is the center, he remained always devotedly attracted.
     Coming to the City of Louisville in the prime of his manhood and in
the full maturity of his splendid abilities, he found, in the pastorate
of one of its leading churches, a field of activity and usefulness worthy
of his great powers.  It was during his connection with the First
Presbyterian Church of Louisville that he wrote the celebrated "Declaration
and Testimony," an ecclesiastical document which figured so largely in the
reconstruction annals of the Presbyterian Church in Missouri and Kentucky.
Collins, the Kentucky historian, previously quoted, pronounced this
remarkable pastor "one of the noblest defenses of true Presbyterianism and
of the crown rights of the Head of the Church ever penned," and others,
equally qualified to speak, have concurred in this judgment.
     Of his printed sermons, one of the most noteworthy was that delivered
December 20, 1868, on the occasion of the funeral of Mr. William Garvin, an
elder of the First Presbyterian Church and of of the leading merchants and
citizens of Louisville, who, on the night of December 4, 1868, met a tragic
death in the burning of the Ohio River mail steamboat "United States" on
which he was a passenger.  Another notable address was that on "The Causes
and Remedies of Impending National Calamities" delivered in Cincinnati,
Ohio, November 18, 1860, on the eve of the Civil war.  A fitting sequel to
this sermon was his speech on "Loyalty" delivered in Pittsburg [sic],
Pennsylvania, May 26, 1865, before the Old School General Assembly, in
which he defended the memory of his friend, Dr. James Henley Thornwell, of
South Carolina.  Parallel to this brilliant performance was the speech
Testimony" and the Louisville Presbytery, made before the Synod of Kentucky
at Louisville, October 16, 1865.  All in all, this was one of the best
efforts of his life, rendered in a contest with adversaries worthy of
his steel.
     Quite a number of his sermons and addresses, besides those above
mentioned, found their way into prints, and at various times he was
associated in the editorship of certain religious periodicals.  In 1872 he
also edited and published a volume of "Hymns of the Church to which is
prefixed a most excellent discourse on "Music."
     Dr. Wilson was a member of Presbyterian General Assemblies a great
number of times was Clerk of the Presbytery of Cincinnati, for nine or ten
years, and presided as Moderator of the Synod of Cincinnati repeatedly.
His unremitting and diversified labors earned for him a high place among
those whose lives have been given to the advancement of the Presbyterian
Church and the promotion of the cause of Christianity and education in the
West and South.  He was a delegate to the World's Protestant Convention,
in London, England, in 1846, but, for reasons satisfactory to himself and
the church, did not attend or take part in the convention.  He traveled in
Great Britain and on the continent on this trip abroad.  He made a second
trip to Europe in 1851, and a third in 1873.
     Rev. Dr. Alfred Nevin, editor of the "Presbyterian Encyclopedia,"
published in 1884, has put upon record this concise and very just tribute
to his superiority as a pastor and preacher--"Dr. Wilson is a strong and
able theologian, and an earnest gospel preacher.  Strongly conservative in
his feelings, and having the courage of his convictions, he has frequently
been engaged in controversy in regard to church policy and doctrine.  In
his prime he was one of the ablest preachers in the Presbyterian Church."
     The "Herald and Presbyter," of March 10, 1886, appearing just after
his death, gave a lengthy editorial notice of his career and character and,
among other things, said--
     "Dr. Wilson was naturally endowed with talents of the highest order.
He was a natural logician, and his acquirements within th bounds of his
profession were exact and thorough.  As a speaker, he was fluent and free
from faults in modulation, emphasis and gesture.  In exegesis and doctrinal
theology, he was acute and profound.  As an ecclesiastic, whether as a
debater or as a moderator, he had few equals.  He bore a conspicuous and
efficient part in the settlement of most of the great question that came
before the Church and the world, even from the beginning of his ministry.
     Dr. Wilson was thrice married.  His first wife was Nancy Campbell
Johnston, of Cincinnati, who was survived by a daughter, Rhuy H. Wilson.
His second wife was Mary C. Bell, a daughter of James Franklin Bell, of
Scott County, Kentucky, grandfather of Major-General James Franklin Bell,
later Chief of Staff of the Unites States army and himself a native of
Shelby County, Kentucky.  One of the sons born of this marriage is Samuel
M. Wilson, a leading lawyer of the City of Lexington.  Dr. Dunning Steele
Wilson, a son by the third marriage, is a prominent physician of
Louisville.  His mother was a daughter of the late Captain Robert Steele
of Louisville.

Wilson Lingan Sprigg Mariartee Lacy Rice Mackay Ramsay Bishop Nevin
Johnston Bell Steele Hoge Ramsay Garvin Thornwell Mansfield
=
Scott-KY Jefferson-KY Lexington-Fayette-KY Shelby-KY Calvert-MD
Prince_George-MD Anne_Arundel-MD Bedford-VA Cincinnati-Hamilton-OH
Hanover-VA IN NJ England Scotland Ireland

http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/jefferson/wilson.sr.txt