Church Presbyterian Name Joseph Wilson | Role Theologian | |
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Education Jefferson CollegePrinceton Theological Seminary Spouse Jessie Janet Woodrow (m. ?–1888) Children Woodrow Wilson, Joseph Ruggles Wilson, Jr., Anne E. Wilson Howe Parents James Wilson, Annie Mills Wilson Similar People Woodrow Wilson, Jessie Woodrow Wilson S, Ellen Axson Wilson, Margaret Woodrow Wilson, Edith Wilson | ||
Joseph Ruggles Wilson Sr. (February 28, 1822 – January 21, 1903) was a prominent Presbyterian theologian and father of President Woodrow Wilson, Nashville Banner editor Joseph Ruggles Wilson Jr., and Anne E. Wilson Howe.
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Life and work
Wilson was born in Steubenville, Ohio, the son of Mary Anne (Adams) and James Wilson, who were Protestant immigrants from Strabane, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. He graduated from Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania (now Washington & Jefferson College) in 1844. He taught literature at Washington & Jefferson. Wilson was later employed as a professor at Hampden-Sydney College and left the school just before the birth of his son, Thomas Woodrow Wilson in Staunton, Virginia. There he became the pastor of Staunton’s Presbyterian Church, which he held from 1855-1857. In late 1857 he moved his family to Augusta, Georgia, where he continued to practice as a Presbyterian pastor.
Joseph and Jessie Wilson moved to the South in 1851 and came to fully identify with it, moving from Virginia deeper into the region as Wilson was called to be a minister in Georgia and South Carolina. Joseph Wilson owned slaves, defended slavery, and also set up a Sunday school for his slaves. Wilson and his wife identified with the Confederacy during the American Civil War; they cared for wounded soldiers at their church, and Wilson briefly served as a chaplain to the Confederate Army.
In 1861 Wilson was one of the founders of the Southern Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS) after it split from the northern Presbyterians. He served as the first permanent clerk of the PCUS General Assembly, was Stated Clerk for more than three decades from 1865 to 1898, and was Moderator of the PCUS General Assembly in 1879. He became minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Augusta, Georgia, until 1870.
Wilson cared for wounded Confederate soldiers in battle by transforming his church into a hospital. Wilson became a professor at Columbia Theological Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1870. He moved to the pastorate at the First Presbyterian Church, Wilmington, NC in 1874. During his time in Wilmington, NC, he presided over many events, including the payment of the local church's debts, the abolition of pew rents, and the inauguration of subscription and weekly contributions. In 1885 he became a professor of theology at Southwestern Presbyterian University in Clarksville, Tennessee.