were foreign-born; (1910 census) 25,748. It is the largest city and the chief seaport of the state. Wilmington is served by the Atlantic Coast Line and the Seaboard Air Line railways, and by steamboat lines to New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore and to ports on the Cape Fear and Black rivers, and is connected by an electric line with Wrightsville Beach, a pleasure resort 12 m. distant on the Atlantic Ocean. Below Wilmington the channel of the Cape Fear river is 20 ft. deep throughout and in some parts 22 and 24 ft. deep; the width of the channel is to be made 270 ft. under Federal projects on which, up to the 30th of June 1909, there had been expended $4,344,029. Above Wilmington the Cape Fear river is navigable for boats drawing 2 ft. for 115 m. to Fayetteville. The city lies on an elevated sand ridge and extends along the river front for about 2½ m. Among its prominent buildings are the United States Government Building, the United States marine hospital, the city and county hospital, the county court house, the city hall (which houses the public library) and the masonic temple. The city is the seat of Cape Fear Academy (1872) for boys, of the Academy of the Incarnation (Roman Catholic) and of the Gregory Normal School (for negroes). The city is the see of a Protestant Episcopal bishop. Wilmington is chiefly a commercial city, and ships large quantities of cotton, lumber, naval stores, rice, market-garden produce and turpentine; in 1909 the value of its exports was $23,310,070 and the value of its imports $1,282,724. The total value of the factory product in 1905 was $3,155,458, of which $893,715 was the value of lumber and timber products.
A settlement was established here in 1730 and was named New Liverpool; about 1732 the name was changed to New Town; in 1739 the town was incorporated, was made the county-seat and was renamed, this time in honour of Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington (c. 1673–1743). In 1760 it was incorporated as a borough and in 1866 was chartered as a city. Some of Wilmington’s citizens were among the first to offer armed resistance to the carrying out of the Stamp Act, compelling the stamp-master to take an oath that he would distribute no stamps. During most of 1781 the borough was occupied by the British, and Lord Cornwallis had his headquarters here. Although blockaded by the Union fleet, Wilmington was during the Civil War the centre of an important intercourse between the Confederacy and foreign countries by means of blockade runners, and was the last important port open to the Confederates. It was defended by Fort Fisher, a heavy earthwork on the peninsula between the ocean and Cape Fear river, manned by 1400 men under Colonel William Lamb. A federal expedition of 150 vessels under Admiral D. D. Porter and land forces (about 3000) under General B. F. Butler approached the fort on the 20th of December 1864; on the 24th the “Louisiana,” loaded with 215 tons of powder, was exploded 400 yds. from the fort without doing any damage; on the 24th and 25th there was a terrific naval bombardment, which General Butler decided had not sufficiently injured the fort to make an assault by land possible; on the 13th and 14th of January there was another bombardment, and on the 15th a combined naval and land attack, in which General A. H. Terry, who had succeeded General Butler in command, stormed the fort with the help of the marines and sailors, and took 2000 prisoners and 169 guns. The Union losses were 266 killed, 57 missing and 1018 wounded. A magazine explosion on the morning of the 16th killed about 100 men in each army. The city was evacuated immediately afterwards.
WILMOT, DAVID (1814–1868), American political leader, was born at Bethany, Pennsylvania, on the 20th of January 1814. He was admitted to the bar in 1834 and practised law in Towanda. He entered politics as a Democrat, served in the National House of Representatives from 1845 to 1851, and although he favoured the Walker Tariff, the Mexican War and other party measures, opposed the extension of slavery. On the 8th of August 1846, when a bill was introduced appropriating $2,000,000 to be used by the president in negotiating a treaty of peace with Mexico, Wilmot immediately offered the following amendment: “Provided, That, as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from the Republic of Mexico by the United States, by virtue of any treaty which may be negotiated between them, and to the use by the Executive of the moneys herein appropriated, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime, whereof the party shall first be duly convicted.” The amendment, famous in American history as the “Wilmot Proviso,” was adopted by the House, but was defeated, with the original bill, by the Senate’s adjournment. A similar measure was brought forward at the next session, the appropriation, however, being increased to $3,000,000, and the amendment being extended to include all territory which might be acquired by the United States; in this form it passed the House by a vote of 115 to 105; but the Senate refused to concur, passed a bill of its own without the amendment; and the House, owing largely to the influence of General Lewis Cass, in March 1847, receded from its position. The amendment was never actually adopted by Congress, and was in fact expressly repudiated in the Compromise of 1850, and its content declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case. Although known as the Wilmot Proviso it really originated with Jacob Brinkerhoff (1810–1880) of Ohio, Wilmot being selected to present it only because his party standing was more regular. The extension of the principle to territory other than that to be acquired from Mexico was probably due to Preston King (1806–1865) of New York. Wilmot supported Van Buren in 1848 and entered the Republican party at the time of its formation, and was a delegate to the national conventions of 1856 and 1860. He was president judge of the 13th Judicial District of Pennsylvania in 1853–1861, United States senator in 1861–1863 and Judge of the United States Court of Claims in 1863–1868. He died at Towanda, Pennsylvania, on the 16th of March 1868.
See G. P. Garrison, Westward Extension (New York and London, 1906).
WILSON, ALEXANDER (1766–1813), American ornithologist, was born in Paisley, Scotland, on the 6th of July 1766. His father, a handloom weaver, soon removed to the country, and there combined weaving with agriculture, distilling and smuggling — conditions which no doubt helped to develop in the boy that love of rural pursuits and adventure which was to determine his career. At first he was placed with a tutor and destined for the church, but afterwards he was apprenticed as a weaver. Then he became a peddler and spent a year or two in travelling through Scotland, recording in his journal every matter of natural history or antiquarian interest. Having incurred a short imprisonment for lampooning the master-weavers in a trade dispute, he emigrated to America in 1794. After a few years of weaving, peddling and desultory observation, he became a village schoolmaster, and in 1802 obtained an appointment near Philadelphia, where he formed the acquaintance of William Bartram the naturalist. Under his influence Wilson began to draw birds, having conceived the idea of illustrating the ornithology of the United States; and thenceforward he steadily accumulated materials and made many expeditions. In 1806 he obtained the assistant-editorship of the American edition of Rees’s Encyclopaedia, and thus acquired more means and leisure for his great work, American Ornithology, the first volume of which appeared in the autumn of 1808, after which he spent the winter in a journey “in search of birds and subscribers.” By the spring of 1813 seven volumes had appeared; but the arduous expedition of that summer, in search of the marine waterfowl to which the remaining volume was to be devoted, gave a shock to his already impaired health, and he succumbed to dysentery at Philadelphia on the 23rd of August 1813.
Of his poems, not excepting the Foresters (Philadelphia, 1805), nothing need now be said, save that they no doubt served to develop his descriptive powers. The eighth and ninth volumes of the American Ornithology were edited after his decease by his friend George Ord, and the work was continued by Lucien Bonaparte (4 vols., Philadelphia, 1825–1833). The complete work was republished several times, and his Miscellaneous Prose Works and Poems was edited with a memoir by the Rev. A. B. Grosart (Paisley, 1876). A statue was erected to him at Paisley in 1876.
