A leader known as a foe of slavery, friend of workers

Vice President Henry Wilson, a former U.S. senator from Massachusetts known as “always the working man’s friend,” rode on the driver’s seat as he took a coach from Glens Falls to Lake George and back again on Aug. 6, 1874.

Wilson went to Lake George to have lunch at The Fort William Henry Hotel, and returned to Glen’s Falls (spelled with an apostrophe in that era) in time to catch the afternoon train south.
“Mr. Wilson looked the well-to-do pleasant, farmer-like gentleman in search of recreation and enjoyment, and determined to find them without making a great ado about it,” The Glen’s Falls Republican reported on Aug. 11, 1874.

Wilson, who served as vice president in the second term of Ulysses S. Grant, also spent time in Saratoga Springs in 1874, working on writing his three-volume masterwork “History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America.”

Wilson, born in 1812 in New Hampshire, rose from poverty to become a newspaper editor and a politician dedicated to the abolition of slavery.

“While his youth was spent at the shoemaker’s bench, by the force of his mind and the earnestness of his purpose, he rose through the various stations of editor, member of the Massachusetts legislature, member of its constitutional convention, United States senator, and vice president of the United States,” lawyer Joseph Shippen of St. Louis wrote in a tribute published Nov. 26, 1875, in The State Journal of Jefferson City, Mo.

Wilson also was a state legislator in New Hampshire before his political career in Massachusetts.
Born Jeremiah Jones Colbath, he legally changed his name to Henry Wilson at age 21, when he was freed from being an indentured servant farm worker.

He learned the shoemaking trade and set up a small manufacturing operation in Natick, Mass. Later, he became owner and editor of the Boston Daily Republican from the late 1840s until 1851, by which time he was already serving as a Massachusetts state senator and was chosen to be Senate president.

He was known for being outspoken and transparent.
“Mr. Wilson is not the man to horde up facts and inferences for his own selfish contemplation,” The Daily Saratogian reported on June 7, 1875. “Quite on the contrary, he shares them with the press and thus with the public in a manner exemplarily liberal.”

Wilson was a Whig when he first entered politics. In 1848, he co-founded the Free Soil Party, a short-lived party that merged into the Republican Party in 1854.

Wilson joined the Know-Nothing Party in 1854, hoping to convert it to an abolitionist force, but was disappointed with his lack of success and joined the Republican Party a few years later.
When Wilson visited Lake George and Saratoga Springs in 1874, there was concern about his health. He had suffered a stroke the previous year.

On July 16, 1874, The Essex County Republican of Keeseville, citing “a leading Republican senator,” reported that Wilson was expected to resign soon because of poor health. The report turned out to be unfounded.

Wilson did not appear ill when he passed through Glen’s Falls in August.
“He appeared ruddy and well, and we hope his health is permanently improved,” The Glen’s Falls Republican reported.

At Saratoga Springs, the vice president appeared to have stamina.
“While in Saratoga last summer, Mr. Wilson enjoyed more than ordinary health for him,” The Daily Saratogian reported on Nov. 10, 1875. “He was in the best of spirits so far as his personal relations with society went.”

Wilson appeared healthy when he again visited Saratoga Springs about a year later to dine at the Grand Union Hotel with James Scovel, the former president of the New Jersey state Senate.
“The vice president is in good health, and he speaks at Brattleboro, Vt., next Wednesday,” The Daily Saratogian reported on Aug. 12, 1875.

The seemingly good health would not last long.
Wilson had been ill for a couple of weeks when he died of a stroke on Nov. 22, 1875. He was 63.
“Vice President Wilson awoke at 7 a.m. He said he felt well and asked his nurse for a glass of water,” The Daily Saratogian reported. “He sat on the bed, drank the water, lay back on his left side and died without a struggle in a few minutes.”

 

Maury Thompson was a reporter for The Post-Star of Glens Falls for 21 years before retiring in 2017. He now is a freelance writer focusing on the history of politics, labor and media in the region.