The New Student's Reference Work/Wilson, Henry

Wilson, Henry, eighteenth vice-president of the United States, was born at Farmington, N. H., Feb. 16, 1812. His proper name was Jeremiah J. Colbaith, which at 21 he changed for some unknown reason to that of Henry Wilson. His father was a day-laborer, and poor. When ten years old, the boy went to work as a farm-hand. He was greedy for reading, and before the end of his apprenticeship had read more than a thousand volumes. He then walked to Natick, Mass., and learned the trade of shoemaker, by which he paid his way through Concord Academy. After setting up as a shoe-manufacturer he became a noted public speaker in support of Harrison in the campaign of 1840. For the next ten years he was regularly elected to the legislature of Massachusetts. In 1848 he left the Whig party and became a Free-Soiler. In 1853 he was defeated for governor on the Free-Soil ticket, but two years later was made Sumner's colleague in the United States senate. Wilson had helped to form the anti-slavery society; throughout his political life he had earnestly upheld antislavery; and he became one of the founders of the Republican party. In 1872 he was chosen vice-president on the ticket with Grant, but died on Nov. 22, 1875. He left three important historical works: Antislavery Measures in Congress, Reconstruction Measures in Congress and The Rise and Fall of the Slave-Power in America. Consult Nason's Life.