Hiram Wilson
*Hiram Wilson was born on this date in 1803. He was a white-American anti-slavery abolitionist.
Hiram Wilson, the son of Polly McCoy and John Wilson, was born in Acworth, New Hampshire. He attended the Oneida Institute in upstate New York, which was at that time the most abolitionist school in the country. He attended a manual labor college and worked while gaining an education. In 1833, Wilson was part of the cohort that abandoned Oneida for the new Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati. Wilson's stay would not last long, as the slavery debates divided the school and city.
He left when the seminary's trustees disbanded the Anti-Slavery Society. Wilson did not participate in this debate but would join the 72 Lane Rebels who left the school. These students left Lane for the new Oberlin Collegiate Institute, where Wilson received a Theology Degree in 1836. After he graduated, the President of Oberlin, Charles Finney, gave Wilson $25 to travel to Upper Canada and to work with the free Blacks. Wilson found the lives of free American Blacks very poor. He returned to the United States to act as a delegate of Upper Canada at a meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society.
His primary goal for Upper Canada was to establish schools for Blacks. In June 1838, Wilson and Josiah Henson called a convention of Black Canadians to discuss building a school and curriculum. He established ten schools by 1839 with fourteen teachers from Oberlin. Wilson was married first to Hannah Maria Hubbard on September 17, 1838. Hannah died in the home of Josiah Henson at Dawn settlement. Wilson lived in St. Catherines with his five children and his second wife, Mary A.H. Wilson. The Canada Mission Board approved for them to find a site that would be safe for fugitives. Dawn Settlement was the site chosen.
1843, Wilson attended the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, where he was the "Central Corresponding Committee for the Coloured Population of Canada." He accumulated $1100.00 at this convention and several hundred Bibles and Testaments. Wilson resigned from the Dawn Settlement and moved to St. Catherines, Ontario, where he worked to found a fugitive haven. He opened an American Missionary Association night school with his second wife, Mary. Between 1850 and 1856, they took in about 125 refugees. Wilson established a Sunday school, which he operated until 1861.
He gave the literate food, clothing, Bibles, and the rest a spelling book. Some 2,000 American Blacks in the St. Catherine area arrived between September and December 1850. Another 3,000 arrived from the United States after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. This school was a terminal station that Harriet Tubman used on the Underground Railroad. It became the first National Historical site in St. Catherines. In 1852, he also applied to be the guardian of Alavana Dicken, a former slave. Hiram Wilson died on April 16, 1864. He was buried at Woodland Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio.
