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Henry Wilson

Henry Wilson (born Jeremiah Jones Colbath; February 16, 1812 – November 22, 1875) was an American politician who was the 18th vice president of the United States from 1873 until his death in 1875 and a senator from Massachusetts from 1855 to 1873. Before and during the American Civil War, he was a leading Republican, and a strong opponent of slavery. Wilson devoted his energies to the destruction of "Slave Power", the faction of slave owners and their political allies which anti-slavery Americans saw as dominating the country.

This article is about the vice president of the United States. For other people with the same name, see Henry Wilson (disambiguation).

Henry Wilson

Ulysses S. Grant

Schuyler Colfax

William A. Wheeler

Julius Rockwell

George S. Boutwell

Jefferson Davis

John A. Logan

Marshall Wilder

Charles Henry Warren

Jeremiah Jones Colbath

(1812-02-16)February 16, 1812
Farmington, New Hampshire, U.S.

November 22, 1875(1875-11-22) (aged 63)
Washington, District of Columbia, U.S.

Old Dell Park Cemetery, Natick, Massachusetts

Harriet Howe
​
​
(m. 1840; died 1870)​

2

  • 1843–1852 (MM)
  • 1861 (UA)

American Civil War

Originally a Whig, Wilson was a founder of the Free Soil Party in 1848. He served as the party chairman before and during the 1852 presidential election. Wilson worked diligently to build an anti-slavery coalition, which came to include the Free Soil Party, anti-slavery Democrats, New York Barnburners, the Liberty Party, anti-slavery members of the Native American Party (Know Nothings), and anti-slavery Whigs (called Conscience Whigs). When the Free Soil party dissolved in the mid-1850s, Wilson joined the Republican Party, which he helped found, and which was organized largely in line with the anti-slavery coalition he had nurtured in the 1840s and 1850s.


While a senator during the Civil War, Wilson was considered a "Radical Republican", and his experience as a militia general, organizer, commander of a Union Army regiment, and chairman of the Senate military committees enabled him to assist the Abraham Lincoln administration in the organization and oversight of the Union Army and Union Navy. Wilson successfully authored bills that outlawed slavery in Washington, D.C., and incorporated African Americans in the Union Civil War effort in 1862.


After the Civil War, he supported the Radical Republican program for Reconstruction. In 1872, Wilson was elected vice president as the running mate of Ulysses S. Grant, the incumbent president of the United States, who was running for a second term. The Grant and Wilson ticket was successful, and Wilson served as vice president from March 4, 1873, until his death on November 22, 1875. Wilson's effectiveness as vice president was limited after he suffered a debilitating stroke in May 1873, and his health continued to decline until he was the victim of a fatal stroke while working in the United States Capitol in late 1875.


Throughout his career, Wilson was known for championing causes that were at times unpopular, including workers' rights for both blacks and whites and the abolition of slavery. Massachusetts politician George Frisbie Hoar, who served in the United States House of Representatives while Wilson was a senator, and later served in the Senate himself, believed Wilson to be the most skilled political organizer in the country. However, Wilson's reputation for personal integrity and principled politics was somewhat damaged late in his Senate career by his involvement in the Crédit Mobilier scandal.

Early life and education[edit]

Wilson was born in Farmington, New Hampshire, on February 16, 1812, one of several children born to Winthrop and Abigail (Witham) Colbath.[1] His father named him Jeremiah Jones Colbath[1] after a wealthy neighbor who was a childless bachelor, vainly hoping that this gesture might result in an inheritance.[2] Winthrop Colbath was a militia veteran of the War of 1812[3] who worked as a day laborer and hired himself out to local farms and businesses, in addition to occasionally running a sawmill.[1]


The Colbath family was impoverished; after a brief elementary education, at the age of 10 Wilson was indentured to a neighboring farmer, where he worked as a laborer for the next 10 years.[4] During this time two neighbors gave him books and Wilson enhanced his meager education by reading extensively on English history, American history and biographies of famous historical figures.[5] At the end of his service he was given "six sheep and a yoke of oxen." Wilson immediately sold his animals for $85 (about $2,200 in 2021), which was the first money he had earned during his indenture.[5]


Wilson apparently did not like his birth name, though the reasons given vary.[6][7] Some sources indicate that he was not close to his family, or disliked his name because of his father's supposed intemperance and modest financial circumstances.[7] Others indicate that he was called "Jed" and "Jerry," and disliked the nicknames so much that he resolved to change his name.[6][8][a] Whatever the reason, when he turned 21 he successfully petitioned the New Hampshire General Court to legally change it.[13] He chose the name Henry Wilson, inspired either by a biography of a Philadelphia teacher[14] or a portrait from a book on English clergymen.[14]

Personal life[edit]

On October 28, 1840, Wilson married Harriet Malvina Howe (1824–1870).[5] They were the parents of a son, Henry Hamilton Wilson (1846–1866), who attended the Highland Military Academy in Worcester, Massachusetts.[117] During the Civil War, the younger Wilson attended the United States Naval Academy, but left before graduating in order to accept a commission in the Union Army.[117] He attained success in the 31st and 104th Regiments of United States Colored Troops, and was promoted to lieutenant colonel and second-in-command of the 104th in July 1865.[5] After the war he accepted a commission as a second lieutenant in the regular Army's 6th Cavalry Regiment, and served until his death from a ruptured appendix in 1866.[5][118][117] Camp Wilson, an Army post in Texas was named for Henry H. Wilson; it was later renamed Fort Griffin.[119]


In 1869 Henry and Harriet Wilson also became the de facto adoptive parents of a girl, Evangelina (or Evangeline), who was born between 1864 and 1866, and took the name Eva Wilson.[120] In a complicated series of events, in 1869 a woman named Caroline Vreeland met Nancy Colbath, wife of Wilson's brother Samuel.[120] Vreeland allowed Nancy Colbath to adopt the child, with the understanding that she would be raised by Henry Wilson and his wife.[120] The child lived with the Wilsons until shortly before Mrs. Wilson's death.[120] Nancy Colbath then kept the child, and received monthly payments from Henry Wilson for her support.[121] Details later emerged which indicated the likelihood that Vreeland had obtained a baby girl from an unknown parent or parents in Boston in 1866 so that her sister could use the baby to extort a man with whom she had had an affair.[121] Vreeland went to prison for a stabbing in the early 1870s.[120] The child continued to live with Wilson, and by 1874 he had asked Nancy Colbath to again be responsible for her.[121] Wilson agreed to provide them a suitable home and financial support, but had not followed through by the time of his death[121]


Wilson requested that the executor of his will, nephew William Leander Coolidge, use most of Wilson's estate to ensure that Wilson's mother in law was cared for, and that Eva receive an education and financial support.[122] Wilson had given Coolidge oral instructions and letters, and the situation became complicated because Wilson's death occurred before he had incorporated these additional instructions into his will.[123] Coolidge acted as a trustee for Eva, and by 1889, when she was more than 21 years old, she claimed she was entitled to the remainder of Wilson's estate.[123] Other Wilson family members disagreed; because of the complexity of the details, Coolidge petitioned the Massachusetts courts for guidance.[123][124] The courts found in favor of Eva, by then married and known as Eva Carpenter, and she received most of the estate, which was valued at approximately $10,000 (about $239,000 in 2021).[125]

Henry Wilson Shoe Shop

and Thornton Chase also in the 104th USCI

Martin Delany

: Henry Wilson-Vice President of the United States

New Hampshire Historical Marker No. 98

Abbott, Richard H. (1965). . Vol. 1. Madison: University of Wisconsin—Madison. p. 8.

Cobbler in Congress: Life of Henry Wilson, 1812–1875

Abbott, Richard H. (1965). . Vol. 2. Madison: University of Wisconsin—Madison. p. 353.

Cobbler in Congress: Life of Henry Wilson, 1812–1875

Abbott, Richard H. (1972). . Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-1249-7. school teacher.

Cobbler in Congress: The Life of Henry Wilson, 1812–1875

Blue, Frederick J. (1987). . Kent, OH: Kent University Press. p. 319. ISBN 978-0-87338-340-0. salmon p. chase funeral henry wilson.

Salmon P. Chase: A Life in Politics

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The Reconstruction Years: The Tragic Aftermath of the War Between the States

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Guide to the Presidency

(1995). Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 113. ISBN 978-0-1997-6226-2.

Foner, Eric

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The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison: Let the Oppressed go Free; 1861–1867

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American Christian Rulers: Or, Religion and Men of Government

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Vice Presidents of the United States, 1789–1993 Henry Wilson (1873–1875)

Haynes, George H. (1936). Malone, Dumas (ed.). Dictionary of American Biography Henry Wilson. : Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 322–325.

New York

Heitman, Francis Bernard (1903). . Vol. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 1046.

Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army

. Hide & Leather: The International Weekly; Shoe Factories – Tanneries – Allied Industries. Chicago, Illinois: Hide and Leather Publishing Co.: 36 June 21, 1919.

"The Natick Cobbler"

McKay, Ernest A. (1971). . Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press. pp. 11, 16, 233. ISBN 978-0-8046-9010-2.

Henry Wilson: Practical Radical; A Portrait of a Politician

McFeely, William S. (1974). Woodward, C. Vann (ed.). Responses of the Presidents to Charges of Misconduct. New York: Delacorte Press. pp. 133–162.  0-440-05923-2.

ISBN

Miller, Richard F. (2013). . Vol. 1. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. pp. 264, 267. ISBN 978-1-61168-324-0.

States at War: A Reference Guide for Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont in the Civil War

Myers, John L. (2009). Henry Wilson and the Era of Reconstruction. , Maryland: University Press of America, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7618-4742-7.

Lanham

Myers, John L. (2005). . Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-7618-2608-8.

Henry Wilson and the Coming of the Civil War

Myers, John L. "The Writing of History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America," Civil War History, June 1985, Vol. 31, Issue 2, pp. 144–162.

; Russell, Thomas (1876). The Life and Public Services of Henry Wilson. Boston: B.B. Russell.

Nason, Elias

New Hampshire Adjutant General (1868). . Manchester, NH: John B. Clarke. p. 203.

Annual Report

Puleo, Stephen (2011). . Boston: Beacon Press. p. Chapter 9. ISBN 978-0-8070-0149-3.

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New York

Scales, John (1914). . Chicago, Illinois: Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company. p. 501.

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Shelden, Rachel A. (2013). . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. pp. 31–32. ISBN 978-1-4696-1085-6.

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. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. 1913. p. 1125.

United States Congressional Serial Set

Wilson, Henry (1872–1877). , 3 vols. (Boston: J. R. Osgood and Co.)

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White, Ronald C.

United States Congress. . Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved on 2008-02-15

"Henry Wilson (id: W000585)"

by Henry Wilson at archive.org

History of the antislavery measures of the Thirty-seventh and Thirty-eighth United-States Congresses, 1861–64

by Henry Wilson at archive.org

History of the reconstruction measures of the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congresses, 1865–68

History of the rise and fall of the slave power in America, , Vol 2 and Vol 3 by Henry Wilson at archive.org

Vol 1

. Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). 1911. p. 692.

"Wilson, Henry" 

. The New Student's Reference Work . 1914.

"Wilson, Henry" 

. 1876. U.S. Government Printing Office.

Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of Henry Wilson, (Vice President of the United States)

. 1876. Elias Nason and Thomas Russell.

The Life and Public Services of Henry Wilson, Late Vice President of the United States

. 1876. Union League Club of New York.

Tribute to the Memory of Henry Wilson, Late Vice President of the United States

Henry Wilson Memorial Park

. 1887. John L. Parker and Robert G. Carter, authors. Rand Avery Company (Boston, MA), publisher.

Henry Wilson's Regiment: History of the Twenty-second Massachusetts Infantry, the Second Company Sharpshooters, and the Third Light Battery in the War of the Rebellion

(1876) Washington: Government Printing Office

Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of Henry Wilson