Back row: Sarah Elizabeth Wilson (Mrs. Royce Allen);
Julia Abigail Wilson (Mrs. James Wickwire); Mr. Truman O. Jones; Susan Margaret Bell (Mrs. David Candee Wilson); Mr. David Candee Wilson; Nancy M. Orton (Mrs. Levi P. Wilson; Hulda Jane Wilson (Mrs. Truman O. Jones.
Front Row:
Eli Pomeroy Wilson;
James Wickwire; Levi P. Wilson; Mary M. Grant (Mrs. Eli P. Wilson).
These are the children of Eli Wilson and Julia Candee Wilson. (I don't have photos of Julia Candee or Eli Wilson.) The Wilsons and Wickwires (James and Julia Abigail Wilson Wickwire) were abolitionists (they worked to outlaw African slavery and free the slaves). Both the Wickwire and the Wilson homes were safe houses on the Underground Railroad. Eli Wilson is my great great grandfather and Julia Wilson Wickwire is my great grand aunt. (You can calculate your own relationship:)
(The
Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and
safe houses used by 19th-century
black slaves in the United States to escape to
free states and
Canada with the aid of
abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause....Wikipedia)
I found the following on the Internet...regarding Eli and Julia Candee Wilson and the Wickwires...
Mr.
and Mrs. Wickwire, were the first couple ever married in this township, and the
ceremony that made them one was performed Mary 17, 1837, in the home in which
they now live., by the Rev. George Sill. Mrs. Wickwire’s maiden name was
Julia Wilson, and her father was Eli Wilson, a native of Harrington, Conn. Her
grandfather, also bearing that name, was a farmer of English extraction, born
in that old New England State of a prominent family. The father (Eli Wilson) was educated in
Yale College and in 1818, settled in the wilds of Oneida County, N.Y., where he
cleared a farm, and also engaged in teaching in the schools besides being a
teacher of vocal music and a leader of the choir. In 1834, he came to this
county with his family at the same time that our subject (James Wickwire) came, arriving in
Farmington in a prairie schooner, June 4. He became wealthy and the owner of
several hundred acres of land. He was connected with the educational interests
of the township and was a Whig in politics and a Congregationalist in religion.
During the latter part of his life he lived retired until his death at the age
of eighty-five in 1875. His wife was named Julia Candee and she was born in Connecticut,
a daughter of David Candee, a large and wealthy land-owner of that State. She
died in 1881, at the age of ninety-three years. Mrs. Wickwire (Julia Wilson) was one of eight
children and was born September 22, 1817, in Connecticut. She was well educated
and was a teacher by profession and taught the first school ever taught in
Farmington, which was conducted in the rudest of school-houses.
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