WILSON, Mrs. Augustus, reformer, was born in Ensor Manor, Md. She is the daughter of
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MRS. AUGUSTUS WILSON.
Gen. John S. Ensor and his wife, Mrs. Elizabeth B. Ensor. She comes of English stock, and her ancestors were distinguished in history. Her great-grandfather was a descendant of King James, and came to the colonies with Lord Baltimore. The land he received by grant is still in the possession of the family. Her male ancestors were soldiers, patriots and statesmen. Her mother was of Scotch descent. Miss Ensor served as her father's private secretary during the Civil War. She became the wife, on 1st December, 1863, of Augustus Wilson, of Ohio, in which State they settled, after traveling extensively in the United States and British America. In 1874 Mr. and Mrs. Wilson removed to Parsons, Kans., where Mr. Wilson engaged in business. He died in July, 1885, in that town. Mrs. Wilson's only child, a son, died in 1869, while they were living in New Madison, Ohio. She has long been identified with the woman suffrage movement, and in 1870 she was elected president of an association. In Ohio she was active in temperance work, and while living in Kansas she wrote much for temperance journals. In 1879 she was made a life member of the Kansas temperance union. In July, 1881, she was a delegate to the national prohibition convention, held in Chicago, and she has attended many State and national conventions of the woman suffragists. From childhood she has been a church and missionary worker, having worked on the woman's board of foreign missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1875 she assisted in raising money to found the mission home in Constantinople. Turkey. In the West she became a member of the Congregational Church. In 1880 she was elected president of the congressional work of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in Kansas. She aided in founding the Parsons Memorial and Historical Library. In 1881 she memorialized both houses of Congress to secure homes in Oklahoma for the "Exodusters." She has served in many public enterprises, such as the Bartholdi monument fund, the relief association for drouth-smitten farmers in Kansas and the New Orleans expositions. She is a trustee of the State Art Association of Kansas, a member of the State Historical Society and of a score of other important organizations. She is a member of the press committee and the Kansas representative in the Columbian Exposition of 1893. After her husband's death she managed her estate. She started the Wilsonton "Journal" in 1888, and still edits it. She lives in the town of her founding. Wilsonton, Kans.