(This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)
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John L. Wilson was born on August 7, 1850, in Crawfordsville, Indiana, of Scotch-Irish stock, son of Col. James Wilson and Emma Ingersoll and brother of Henry Lane Wilson. His father served in the Mexican War, had two terms in Congress, and was a lieutenant-colonel of volunteers in the Civil War.
Before he was seventeen, however, his father died, and thereafter the boy supported himself by odd jobs and by employment as clerk with a surveying crew.
He graduated from Wabash College in 1874, and studied law in the office of an uncle.
In 1877 Wilson was admitted to the bar. Two years later he was given an appointment in the United States pension bureau, but soon returned to the law.
He was elected to the Indiana legislature in 1880. The West attracted him, and in 1882 President Arthur appointed him receiver of the federal land office at Colfax, Washington Territory. He served four and a half years, during which period the office was moved to Spokane.
In 1888 he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Chicago, and the following year, at the first state Republican convention of Washington, held in Walla Walla just prior to the admission of the state, he was nominated as representative-at-large in Congress, and in 1889 was elected. He was twice returned as the sole representative from Washington, and in 1895, while serving his third term, was elected United States senator to complete the term left vacant by the failure of the legislature of 1893 to elect a successor to John Beard Allen. Wilson served as senator until the expiration of this term, March 3, 1899.
At the close of his term in the Senate, he returned to his home in Spokane. In 1899, with a loan from James J. Hill, he purchased the controlling interest in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He removed to Seattle in 1903 and devoted his time chiefly to the management of the paper until a few months before his death. He died on November 6, 1912, of heart disease at the New Willard Hotel, Washington, D. C. , when he was about to start on a trip around the world.
John Lockwood Wilson was an influential politician, whose activities in Congress resulted in a vast amount of river and harbor development in the Pacific Northwest. The location of the navy yard on Puget Sound was due to his efforts. In addition, he is credited with securing the establishment of Fort Lawton at Seattle and the development of Fort George Wright at Spokane. He sponsored a lieu land bill which dissolved the troubles arising from the taking of lieu land by the Northern Pacific Railroad as compensation for losses in the original grant and confirmed the titles of hundreds of farmers who had developed the rich Palouse region and were in danger of being dispossessed. He introduced and secured the passage of a bill, in the Fifty-fifth Congress, creating Rainier National Park. He was interested in the promotion of trade with the Orient and early recognized the needs of Alaska and urged them in Congress.
(This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)
From 1880 John L. Wilson was a member of the Indiana House of Representatives.
From November 20, 1889 to February 18, 1895, he was a member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Washington's at-large district.
In 1883, John L. Wilson married Edna Sweet, by whom he had a daughter.
James Wilson as a United States Representative from Indiana.
Henry Lane Wilson was an American attorney.
