Gaston, Joseph.  "Portland, Oregon Its History and Builders."  Vol. 2. 
Chicago and Portland, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1911. p. 343.

ALEXANDER KING WILSON

     While the days have not been equally bright in the career of Alexander King
Wilson, he has on the whole made progress, and especially during the period of
his connection with the Oregon bar has he won substantial victories that class
him with the leading and able lawyers of Portland, where he is practicing under
the firm style of Wilson & Neal.  He was born and reared on a farm bordering the
head waters of the Potomac river in Allegany county, Maryland, his natal day
being September 15, 1864.  In the paternal line he comes of English ancestry.
His grandparents were Michael and Harriet (Cresap) Wilson, the latter a daughter
of Robert Cresap and a descendant of Colonel Thomas Cresap, who settled in
Maryland in very early days.  James William Wilson, father of Alexander King
Wilson, still resides upon the old homestead in Allegany county, Maryland.  He
was educated in Alexandria, Virginia, and has always followed the occupation of
farming, although at different times he has taken an active part in public
affairs, serving in the office of judge of the orphans court and as county
assessor, and in other positions of public trust.  He wedded Mary T. King, who
was the eldest of the twelve children of Alexander King, for whom the subject of
this review was named.  The grandfather, great-grandfather and
great-great-grandfather of Alexander King Wilson, in the maternal line, were all
named Alexander King, and how many before them no one knows.  The one that
emigrated to this country came from Banbridge in the County of Down, Ireland,
and married Sarah McAllister.  Alexander King, the grandfather, who lived in
Cumberland, Maryland, for a number of years, followed merchandising there and at
one time was judge of the orphans court.  Cumberland is the county seat of
Allegany county and the point from which Braddock started his famous campaign in
the French and Indian war.  The old National pike passes through that section of
the county as well as the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which was one of the first
roads built in the United States.
     Alexander King Wilson was reared on the old homestead in a locality where
the farms are made up of flat or bottom lands near the river, growing in
elevation until hills and mountains constitute that section of the farm which is
farthest removed from the stream.  This land has been so divided as to include
all the different kinds of soil in the section.  The Wilson homestead comprises
about four hundred acres of land and has been in the family since the original
title was granted by the government, the grant being received from the governor
of Maryland.  At the age of six years Mr. Wilson was sent to the public schools
and during the leisure hours spent his time in fishing in the Potomac river and
hunting.  Grouse, quail, wild turkeys and rabbits were abundant in those days
and there were also a few deer.  The work of the farm likewise claimed his
attention and was of a very diversified character.  His father entertained the
fact that no man should own land and employ men who had not actually done every
kind of work that he expected his men to do, and was familiar with everything
that was to be done upon the farm.  As a result he was taught by his father all
the different kinds of work required on a farm.  There were one hundred sheep,
fifty cattle and ten head of horses on the place, while corn, hay, wheat and
oats were raised.  Mr. Wilson took care of the stock in summer and winter,
planted, ploughed and gathered the corn and drove a Walter A. Wood mower seven
years in succession over more than one hundred acres of ground each year.  He
also cared for the horses, helped shear the sheep, and in plowing followed a
black man who had been a slave in the family prior to the Civil war.  As stated
he continued his education in the public schools until sixteen years of age,
when he was sent to Pennington Seminary in New Jersey.  There he remained for a
year and received a diploma at his graduation from the business department of
the school.  He afterward attended the public school in Cumberland for two
years, going back and forth on the train most of the time.  At the age of
nineteen he began teaching at Corrigansville, Allegany county, Maryland, and
later spent tow years as a student in Phillips Academy at Exeter, New Hampshire.
It was subsequent to this time that he secured employment in a factory known as
the West Virginia Extract Works, in Mineral county, West Virginia, about sixteen
miles from Keyser, the nearest railroad point.  He at first received only one
dollars and ten cents per day for his services, but was gradually promoted and
during the first year he remained with the house he filled all of the different
positions the factory offered.  He then went upon the road as a traveling
salesman, his route extending from Boston to St. Louis.  Later he joined others
from the West Virginia Extract Works and went to Decatur, Alabama, where a plant
was erected at a cost of about one hundred thousand dollars.  The experience of
passing from New Hampshire to Northern Alabama was a good education for the
young man.  Contrasts in many instances were very striking to him.  He saw the
town of Decatur grow from a population of fifteen hundred to eight thousand in
less than a year.  Anxious to profit by the consequent rise in real-estate
values, he bought land, built a house and made plans for the future, as young
men always do.  But in 1888 the town was stricken with yellow fever, with the
result that Mr. Wilson was left heavily in debt, with a vacant house on his
hands and with no position.  Six or seven months after the fever had appeared in
the town he visited the place to see how it looked, and gazed upon vacant houses
and crippled business enterprises.  Returning to the old homestead, he began
work there at thirteen dollars per month and board.
     In the fall of 1888 Mr. Wilson secured a position in the law office of
Swayne, Swayne & Hayes, in Toledo, Ohio, afterward entering the mercantile
agency of R. G. Dunn & Company of that place.  Energy was then his only asset,
but he made it county for the most possible and his close application and
diligence enabled him to make steady progress.  He began with a salary of forty
dollars per month and some years afterward, when leaving the employ of R. G.
Dunn & Company, he was receiving one hundred dollars per month.  In the employ
of the same firm he came to Portland on the 14th of August, 1891.  In the
meantime he took up the study of law and in June, 1892, was admitted to practice
at the Oregon bar.  The following year he was graduated from the law department
of the University of Oregon, and on the 7th of November, 1893, opened an office
in the Worcester block, there remaining until November 5, 1904, when he removed
to No. 631 Chamber of Commerce building, where he has since maintained an
office.  In 1906 he formed a partnership with O. A. Neal, under the firm name of
Wilson & Neal, and this association has since been maintained.
     While in the employ of R. G. Dunn, for about five years, Mr. Wilson handled
collections and acquired wide knowledge of the branch of the law which has to do
with sales, notes, exemptions, limitation of action, etc., first in Ohio,
Indiana and Michigan, and later in Oregon, Washington and Idaho.  This brought
him in contact with credit men of the wholesale and manufacturing houses of the
various sections in which he labored, and thereby he gained knowledge of great
benefit to himself.  His law practice was at first largely along those lines but
gradually he has extended his efforts into fields and is recognized as a strong
and able interpreter of the law in various branches.  His devotion to his
clients' interests is proverbial and he is regarded as an able and conscientious
minister in the temple of justice.  His early experience as a farmer led him to
investigate the agricultural resources of the northwest and, deeply interested
in the subject of irrigation, he attended eight of the national irrigation
congresses and has been retained by a number of irrigation companies to look
after their interests.  Actively connected with the development of the city, he
has become very familiar with the law concerning the use of city streets as well
as with corporation law.  He is now interested in a number of corporations and
organized companies which profit largely by his legal opinions concerning
questions which bear upon their conduct.
     On the 7th of August, 1905, Mr. Wilson was united in marriage to Miss Dora
Espy, the eldest child of Robert H. and Julia A. (Jefferson) Espy.  The latter's
mother was Matilda (Apperson) Jefferson.  Robert H. Espy crossed the plains in
1852 and at the present time lives in Oysterville, Pacific county, Washington.
The Appersons crossed the plains in 1847.  The father of the family, Beverly
Apperson, died on the trip over the Rocky mountains on the 21st of July of that
year.  Mrs. Apperson settled in Portland with her large family and for a time
conducted a boarding house.  This family now has many representatives in the
northwest.  Unto Mr. and Mrs. Wilson have been born three children, Robert,
Espy, Mary and Julia.  The family reside at Oswego, a suburb of Portland, where
Mr. Wilson has six and half acres of land which has some fifty fruit trees upon
it.  He spends his spare time on this place, studying the growth of his trees
and crops, and his interest in horticultural and agricultural pursuits largely
enables him to speak with authority upon such questions.  In his youthful days
was laid the foundation for his present progress and prosperity in the habits of
industry, and enterprise and reliability which were fostered in him by his
father.  He early learned to be self-reliant and independent also, and as the
years passed on his native talents developed until he has long since proven his
ability to cope with many problems which affect the general progress, material
development and the growth and upbuilding of the community.
 
 
Transcriber's additional notes:
 
CENSUS
 
1900, June 1; Multnomah Co, OR; Portland Pct 6, p 129; 589 Glisan
A. King Wilson, 36, Sept 1864, MD, MD, MD, mar 12 yrs, att. at law
Dora E, wife, 28, May 1872, WA, PA, OR, mar 12 yrs, 1 child-1 living
Robert, son 0/12, July 1899, OR, MD, WA
Thomas Willard, boarder, 15, Nov 1884, WA, PA, OR, att. school
Maud Miller, boarder, 18, June 1882, OR, unk., unk.
 
1910, May 12; Clackamas Co, OR; Oswego Pct, p 8
Alexander K. Wilson, 45, MD, MD, MD, mar 15 yrs, commercial lawyer
Dora E, wife, 37, WA, PA, OR, mar 15 yrs, 4 children-3 living
Robert E, son, 10, OR, MD, WA
Mary, dau, 6, OR, MD, WA
Julia, dau, 3, OR, MD, WA


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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in February 2006 by Diana Smith.
Submitter has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned
above.