Charles James Wilson

As printed in 1909

CHARLES JAMES WILSON.

Charles James Wilson was born in the Jonathan II. Wilson home in Washington. Iowa, November ii, 1850. His parents were.Michael Wilson and Catherine Wilson, whose maiden name was Catherine A. Hood. Charles was reputed one of the prettiest and sweetest babes in all the countryside, but, not wishing to umpire the game, we shall leave it to his present admirers to say whether the promise and prophesy of the infantile pulchritude has been fulfilled, or broken to the hope.

His father was a farmer and one of the very first settlers of the county, and Charles grew up out of doors, fond of sports, animals, birds, flowers, colors, etc., and accumulated the average of colds, chilblains, stabbed toes and stone bruises on heels, and letters in the post-office. He was a few years too late for the Indians that he is so fond of. and he has been gathering their relics ever since.

Lie never cared to climb his genealogical tree, for any of us may have had remote ancestors whose photographs we should not exactly prize. No one would care to trace back to the Flood when all of our forebears were sponge off the map. Charles did not care to scrape acquaintance farther back than grand or great-grand — he was not greedy of ancestors — let the dead bury their dead. It was enough matter of congratulation that he safely arrived on this merry scene.

His was a common-school education, supplemented by a few terms in a sort of academy. He read law about two years with Mcjunkin & Henderson and graduated from the law department of the Iowa University in the class of 7874-5, '" June, 1875. While in the common schools, he learned much on the outside, as Emerson says, all boys get the best part of their education on the way to school, foraging for melons, green apples, worms for bait, and abluting in the Ole Swimmin Hole.

Why did he propose to become a lawyer? To escape the farm. The man who started the story that Charles was passionately fond of farm life was a charter member of the original Ananias Club and a nature baker besides. He tried the law to get the means to exist and leave broad margins for the enjoyment of fun. He made good at law, practicing alone several years, then joined the firm of Stone, Wilson & Kellogg. On its dissolution, the shingle read Wilson & Kellogg. Then again alone a series of years, and for a year or so it was Eicher & Wilson, then Wilson & Wilson, his son Carlton C. becoming a partner.

He married Clara Conger at her parent's home in Washington, November 13, 1872, and five children were born to them; Nellie, who died in infancy; Mrs. Katherine Smith; Mrs. Edith Lytle: Carlton C.: and Miss Helen.

Mr. Wilson has and ever had a strong taste for military affairs. He was one of the first members of Company D, Second Regiment Iowa National Guard, and had a continuous service with it from April i8, 1878, to April 12, 1906, in various grades, as private, commissary of subsistence, etc., and for two years he served on Governor Cummins' staff, as he is now serving on Governor Carroll's staff, as chief of engineers, with the rank of colonel. He was also a member of our famous Rifle Team that won contests with many noted companies and he was a splendid shot, a gift inherited from his Nimrod father.

In civil life, he held the offices of city solicitor, county attorney four terms, representative for Washington county in the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth general assemblies of Iowa, and was a member of the republican state central committee for the first congressional district two years, and he is local attorney for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway. He is a-Mason, a Knight of Pythias, an Elk, and belongs to several fraternal insurance societies. His church associations are by proxy Episcopalian, and his general religious views may be summer up in the cred, the goodness of man and the mercy of God.

He and his wife are noted for the jolliest hospitality. Mine host has few rivals as an entertained, for he is brimming with stories, anecdotes, wise saws and pithy instances, and he is so artistic a mimic and has such a keen sense of the comic, he would shine on the vaudeville stage.

Withal, he has singular fitness for public life, especially adaptedness to wise legislation. This county never had an able and more versatile, or safer and saner representative in the legislature than was he in two sessions. He loved the agreeable work, and the scope and wisdom and good sense of his acts were seen only by those who went behind the scenes, into the committee rooms, where, as in laboratories, the germs are nourished or made way with, as the case requires.

He enjoyed quaint characters, full of sap and individuality, and no doubt he thought this county has grown as queer and as rich specimens of humanity as ever sat to playwright, poet, novelist, caricaturist, or were bodied forth by comedians to amuse mankind. Droll people appealed mightily to him, and he counted thai day dull which did not bring occasions for several earthquake laughs to this true Epicurean.

Mr. Wilson is a many-side man, and a close acquaintance with him discloses signal ability and a variety of tastes and passions that one might not suspect in the silent, thoughtful, preoccupied man. At the bar his is one of the acutest intellects. In the heat of trial his mind acts with the quickness and energy of gunpowder, and he is a successful practitioner. He has a passion for gardening and is an enthusiast in the culture of flowers. The bride of his soul is the tube-rose. He comes up town with a pocketful), morning, and without a word tucks one in the button-hole of a friend. In the floral season he is all aroma — pronounce that ar-o-ma — and he smells as good as if he had slept in his clothes in the Persian rose-garden of Saadi. He is not book, but he has done a heap of thinking on many lines. Beware how you engage him — in controversy he is as dangerous a polemic as Huxley said Newman was before he became cardinal. Charles thinks things out broad-gauge, with patience and thoroughness and the dearest vision of logical relations. He has a passion for relics, especially for Indian remains and archaic fire-arms and implements. He would, probably, rather pick up an Indian arrow-head than a twenty dollar gold piece, tho he has bu.shels of these parts. Every new dart is another "good Indian." He built a museum to hold his curios, and it is the quaintest shop in the city.

As printed in History of Washington County, Iowa from the first white settlements to 1908. Also biographical sketches of some prominent citizens of the county (1909). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.