Farmer, publisher, municipal official.
Born on a farm near Stratford, Ontario on 11 September 1858, son of Thomas Wilson and Jane Haines, he attended Victoria College at Coburg until he was 17, then studied medicine in New Jersey, receiving an MD degree in 1879. He then came to Manitoba and, in June 1879, took up a homestead near Birtle, being one of the first eight settlers there. He served in the militia during the 1885 North West Rebellion. In 1891 he established the Birtle Eye Witness, one of the first newspapers in the area, operating it until his death. He served as Mayor of Birtle from 1909 to 1920, and from 1928 to 1932, and was a long-time member of the local school board. In April 1882, he married Mary Ann Dunsmore (1861-1953) at Stratford, Ontario. They had ten children: Charles Henry Oscar Wilson (1882-?), William Wilber Wilfred Wilson, Albert Earl Wilson (1887-?), Edyth Jane Wilson (1889-?), Elmer Vincent Wilson (1892-?), Thomas Arthur Wilson, Myrtle Ada Louise Wilson (1898-?), Alvin James Wilson (1901-?), Edmund Nelson “Ted” Wilson (1903-?), and Lorne Elroy Wilson (1905-?). He died at his Birtle home on 9 October 1943 and was buried in the Birtle Cemetery.
Birth registrations, Manitoba Vital Statistics.
1901 Canada census, Automated Genealogy.
The Story of Manitoba by F. H. Schofield, Winnipeg: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1913.
“Editor E. J. Wilson, Birtle, buried Monday,” Winnipeg Free Press, 12 October 1943, page 12.
“Wilson of Birtle,” Winnipeg Free Press, 27 October 1943, page 13.
Obituaries and burial transcriptions, Manitoba Genealogical Society.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 3 November 2018
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