Horace W. Wilson
There are one thousand eight hundred and forty-six farms in Fayette county, Ohio, and of this number there are only forty-three with an acreage of more than five hundred acres. Some of these large farms have come about as a result of inheritance and others have been the result of the individual labors of the owners. One of the most successful farmers of Marion township is Horace W. Wilson, who, by his own initiative, has accumulated a farm of six hundred acres, having started in with nothing at the beginning of his career. He started out to work by the month and later bought a small farm and to this has added from time to time until he bas become the owner of his present fine farm. It has taken good management, close economy and progressive farming, and these qualities are strikingly exemplified in the career of Mr. Wilson. While he has been accumulating a comfortable fortune of his owni, he has not neglected to bear his full share of the burdens of community life and has always been known as a public-spirited citizen, interested in everything which pertains to the welfare of his township and county.
Horace W. Wilson, the proprietor of Maple Lawn Stock Farm, on the Bloomingburg and New Holland pike, was born January 28. 1857, in Green township, Fayette county, Ohio. He is the son of John and Martha J. (Cockerell) Wilson, and one of eight children born to his parents, the others being Mrs. Clara Neil, William G., Mrs. Sylvitha Hidy, J. M.. Charles, John and Chilton P. John Wilson was born in Rockingham county. Virginia, and came to this county with his parents, William and Peachy (Fishback) Wilson, about 1810 or 1812. John Wilson was a farmer and merchant and a man of prominence in his community. He was a man of excellent intellectual attainments and gave his children the best advantages which the schools of that early day afforded.
Horace W. Wilson attended the schools of Perry township and remained at home with his father on the farm until he reached the age of twenty-two, when he began to work out by the month, saving his wages with the intention of purchasing a farm of his own. He first bought one hundred and fourteen acres in Perry township, this county, and two years later sold it and purchased a farm in Ross county, Ohio, where he lived for a while, and then sold his farm at a good profit and invested the proceeds in land in Marion township, this county. After locating in Marion township, he added to his land holdings until he now has six hundred acres of as good land as can be found within the county. He has a beautiful country home, commodious and convenient barns and everything which the up-to-date farmer needs for the successful tilling of the soil. He is one of the largest stock raisers of the county and sells stock by the car load every year.
Mr. Wilson was married in 1882 to Emma J. Cline, the daughter of William and Naomi (Glascow ) Cline, and to this union have been born five children, Ethel, Glenn, Ray, Verne and Dale. Glenn married Ada King, and has two children, Horace and an infant unnamed.
The Republican party has received the support of Mr. Wilson since reaching his majority and, despite his heavy agricultural interests, he has always been deeply interested in local political matters. At the present time he is serving on the school board of his township and doing everything within his power for the advancement of the educational interests of his township. He and his family are consistent members of the Presbyterian church, to whose support they are generous contributors. Fraternally, he is a member of the Free and Accepted Masons and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Mr. Wilson has a wide circle of friends throughout the township and county and, owing to his honesty in business and his upright social and private life, he well merits the high esteem in which he is held by every one with whom he is associated. Thus far his life has been one of strenuous activity and, by reason of the success with which it has been attended, his friends are justified in predicting for him a future of still greater usefulness and distinction.
From History of Fayette County Ohio - Her People, Industries and Institutions by Frank M. Allen (1914, R. F. Bowen & Company, Inc.)