WILSON, CRAWFORD PAGE (1861-1929)

WILSON, CRAWFORD PAGE, Baptist minister, Doaktown field, 1903-07; b. Belmont, near Truro, N.S., 13 Feb 1861, s/o John Wilson and Esther Barnhill; m. Mary Watt Baird; d. Cranford, N.J., 13 Jan 1929.

Crawford P. Wilson attended Horton Academy and was trained for the ministry at the Newton Theological Institute in Massachusetts and Morgan Park Theological Seminary in Chicago (BD). He was ordained in 1891 and had pastorates in all three Maritime provinces. Before being invited to Doaktown in 1903 he was the minister at Cavendish, P.E.I. Upon his arrival, or shortly after, he and his family moved into a new parsonage which was built that year. Like several other Doaktown pastors of that era he ministered to all Baptist adherents in Ludlow, Blissfield, and Blackville parishes. His work was said to have had a positive influence on the congregations concerned. When he left in August 1907 he went to Great Village, N.S., but he returned to New Brunswick the next year as the minister at Gibson.

Wilson later held pastorates in Saint John and Oromocto, N.B., and at Bass River and Wolfville, N.S. For a few years he was superintendent of home missions in New Brunswick. In this capacity he joined the Rev. Henry E. Allaby in 1915 in a crusade at Whitneyville and Little Southwest in which fifty-one persons were converted and baptized. In 1924, when he was the minister at Upper Gagetown, he returned to Lyttleton at the invitation of the Rev. David C. Kaine and helped baptize twenty converts.

Wilson's wife, Mary W. Baird, who was a gifted musician and music teacher, died in 1925 while visiting with their son in New Jersey. Wilson died in New Jersey as well, and their graves are in Fair View Cemetery in the city of Westfield.