WILSON, WILLIAM (1848-1925)

WILSON, WILLIAM, grocer; Chatham postmaster, 1897-1925; b. Aberdeen, Scotland, 1848 (bap. Jul 1848), s/o Alexander Wilson and Mary Gray; m. 1884, Mary Johnston, d/o William Johnston and Agnes Dickson; d. Chatham, 24 Jan 1925.

William Wilson was educated at the secondary college which was founded by Robert Gordon in Aberdeen, and in 1867 he followed his widowed mother to Chatham. His mother's sister, Ann Gray, was the wife of William Muirhead, with whom he was employed for about five years. Then, in partnership with William A. Hickson, he founded a grocery and provision business under the name of William Wilson & Co. He conducted this until the partnership was dissolved by mutual consent in 1897. A few months later he was appointed postmaster at Chatham.

Wilson had an "affable disposition" and was "of excellent personal character and habits." In 1898 he was a trustee of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church. He was an enthusiastic curler and one of the most skilled on the Miramichi. He and his wife, Mary Johnston, had three children: Agnes Wilson, a teacher at the grammar school in Chatham, and later at Baron Byng High School in Montreal; Vera Wilson, also a teacher at the grammar school, and later head of the household science department at the Vocational School in Saint John; and Norman Wilson, an engineering graduate of the University of New Brunswick who was a hydrographic surveyor with the Canadian government.