Title: B. F. Wilson Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1857-1956

Creator:

• Wilson, B. F. (Benjamin Franklin), 1859-1934

Call Number: Stevens Point Mss T

Quantity: 1.2 c.f. (3 archives boxes)

Repository:

Housed at the Nelis R. Kampenga University Archives & Area Research Center, Learning Resources Center, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point; owned by the Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

UW-Stevens Point Library / Stevens Point Area Research Ctr. (Map)

Abstract:

Papers of business entrepreneur B. F. Wilson, Wausau, Wisconsin, including personal papers, genealogical data, scattered records of the Bradley Brothers Land, Log and Lumber Company, Milwaukee, and records of the Wilson Mercantile Company of Wausau, dealers in wholesale groceries and sundries, particularly concerning its 1948 dissolution.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-stpt000t

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Benjamin Franklin Wilson was the son of George Wilson of Nottingham, England, and Fanny Pearson Wilson of Cumberland, England. His parents moved to America in the 1850s, and he was born in Belmont, Ontario, November 7, 1859.

B.F. Wilson typifies the Wisconsin entrepreneur of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After starting work as office boy in the Ruggles Lumber Co., Manistee, Michigan, he was advanced to head bookkeeper there, but in 1881 took a bookkeeping position with the Bradley Brothers Co. in Milwaukee. In time he returned to Manistee to a better position, and in 1892 came back to Milwaukee as director, secretary, and treasurer of the Bradley Brothers Land, Log, and Lumber Co. In 1897 Wilson and H.E. Salsich formed their own lumber company at Star Lake, Wisconsin. This company was dissolved in 1907.

In 1910 Wilson established the Wilson Mercantile Company in Wausau. The firm (capitalized with 75,000 dollars by twelve stockholders) prospered, and, in time, opened a branch in Rhinelander. Wilson Mercantile dealt in wholesale groceries and sundries. The Company continued in business as a Wisconsin corporation until 1948 when it was dissolved by common consent of the stockholders. Wilson's son, Perry M. Wilson, had become president of the company after his father's death in 1934. Shortly after the company's dissolution it was succeeded by the Valley Queen Cooperative Association, a new corporation with many of the same stockholders and officers.

Wilson was a director of several Wausau businesses including Employers' Mutual Liability Insurance Co., Marathon Paper Mills Co., Wisconsin Valley Electric Co., Marathon County Bank of Wausau, and the Record-Herald Newspaper Company. He owned and operated a 240-acre farm on which he bred and raised Guernsey cattle. A sportsman, he was also a founding partner of the Deerfoot Hunting Lodge on Star Lake.

Wilson married Della M. Russell of Manistee, Michigan, in 1882. They had five children, George, Perry, Edgar, Marion, and Florence. His older brother, John A. Wilson, was a prominent lumberman of Portland, Oregon. Benjamin Franklin Wilson died on June 22, 1934.

The Benjamin Franklin Wilson papers are arranged in two series: Personal Papers, 1857-1956, and the Wilson Mercantile Company Records, 1910-1950.

The PERSONAL PAPERS, 1857-1956, include scattered bits of family correspondence, business correspondence, mainly in the two bound letterpress volumes, and a financial ledger, 1876-1882. The letterpress books and financial ledger include personal letters and records along with those of Bradley Brothers Company. There are also articles written by Wilson and some biographical material mostly in the form of newspaper clippings. The Wilson Family segment contains considerable genealogical data collected and compiled by Wilson circa 1913. Information, primarily in tabular form, is included on many branches of the family, often traced back to England.

The WILSON MERCANTILE COMPANY RECORDS, 1910-1950, deal mainly with the dissolution of the company in 1948 after nearly 40 years of existence. This dissolution necessitated the closing out of all claims and outstanding accounts, the clearing up of several tax problems, the liquidation of old stock, and the issuing, as payment in kind, of new stock in the successor company, the Valley Queen Cooperative Association.

Acquisition Information

The Wilson Mercantile Company Records were presented by Mrs. Jane Caldwell Letherman, Sugar Camp, Wis., 1975. The Benjamin Franklin Wilson personal papers were presented by Mrs. Mary P. Wilson, Monroe, Wis., 1976. Accession Number: M75-312, M76-177

Processing Information

Processed by W. R. Brandt (FGH intern) and Joanne Hohler, 1977.

	Series: Personal Papers
	Correspondence
Box   1 Folder   1-2	Family, 1857-1868, 1886, 1908-1933, undated
Box   1 Folder   3	Bradley Brothers, 1881
Box   1 Folder   4-5	Letter Books, 1878-1902 Physical Description: Two bound volumes
Box   1 Folder   6	Financial Ledger, 1876-1882 Physical Description: One bound volume
	Articles
Box   2 Folder   1	By B. F. Wilson, 1913-1931
Box   2 Folder   2	Deerfoot Lodge Memo by Neal Brown, 5 October 1910
	Biographical
Box   2 Folder   3	General, 1881-1933
Box   2 Folder   4	Clippings, 1881-1931
	Wilson Family
Box   2 Folder   5	Genealogical Tables
Box   2 Folder   6	National Wilson Family Association, 1927, 1928
Box   2 Folder   7	Miscellany
	Series: Wilson Mercantile Company Records	⇧
	Corporation Papers
Box   2 Folder   8	Articles of incorporation, 1910; By-laws, , 1910; 2 Property Deeds, , 1917
Box   2 Folder   9	Transfer and sale of company, 1943-1948
Box   2 Folder   10-11	Stock Transfer Books, 1910-1935 Physical Description: Two bound volumes
Box   3 Folder   1-2	Minutes of Corporation Meetings, 1910-1944 Physical Description: One bound volume
	Contracts, Accounts, Business Correspondence
Box   3 Folder   3-4	Claims by the Company, 1948-1949
Box   3 Folder   5	Insurance Correspondence, 1948-1950
Box   3 Folder   6	Supplier Accounts, 1929-1958 (scattered)
Box   3 Folder   7	Supplier Contracts, 1939, 1945
	Financial
	Income Tax
Box   3 Folder   8	State Returns, 1948, 1949
Box   3 Folder   9	Federal Returns, 1940-1942, 1946, 1948, 1949
Box   3 Folder   10	Correspondence, 1949-1950
Box   3 Folder   11	Report on Examination of Accounts, 1947
Box   3 Folder   12	Trial Balances, 1948
Box   3 Folder   13	Balance Sheets, 1948
Box   3 Folder   14	Pay Vouchers, 1948 (Scattered)
Box   3 Folder   15	Employee Benefits, 1946
Box   3 Folder   16	Purchase Contracts, 1948
Box   3 Folder   17	Miscellany