William D. Wilson
William D. Wilson was the son of Valentine and Eleanor Wilson, and was born February 27, 1807, and was principally raised in Somerford Township, being but nine years of age when his father settled there on Deer Creek. Soon after arriving at his majority, he married Miss Nancy Moore, and purchased 200 acres of land on the Darby Plains in Canaan Township, at 80 cents per acre. This purchase amounted to $160, to meet which he borrowed the money, his Uncle Daniel being his bondsman. Much of his purchase was under water nearly half of the year, but it produced an abundance of grass during the summer and fall. He was not an early settler of Canaan Township, having located here about 1829-30. He at once built a cabin, and very soon entered quite largely upon the stock business, as his land was better adapted to grazing at that day than to tillage, and from his future success it seems he was peculiarly adapted to dealing in stock. As a financier and a trader, he was a remarkable success. Shrewd and careful in all his transactions, economical and industrious, and carefully investing his gains in more land, he soon became the owner of a vast amount of the best of land upon the Darby Plains, counting his acres by thousands and his dollars by thousands upon thousands. He died at his homestead place March 25, 1873, aged sixty-six years. He was the father of eight children—Alexander, who married Martha Jane Millikin; Ellen, married Benjamin Morris, she died childless, December 3, 1857; James Monroe, married Achsa Burnham; La Fayette, married Sarah Temple; William M. married Mary M. Slyh; Sarah, married John Price; Washington, married Miss Wilson, of Kentucky; Taylor, married Eliza Daily, he died February 17, 1875.
From History of Madison County - W. H. Beers [Chicago, 1883]