Thomas Wilson, here or nearby

The graves of Thomas Wilson (d. 1796) and Mary Ann Moore Wilson (d. 1807) are no longer marked, if they ever were, but a cenotaph, perhaps placed by their grandson, is still in place. My fear that it would be difficult to find was unfounded: It is surrounded by a simple fence and impossible to miss at the back of the small cemetery.

HERE OR NEARBY LIE
THE REMAINS OF
THOMAS WILSON
AND HIS WIFE
MARY ANN MOORE
GRANDPARENTS OF
WILLIAM W. WILSON

Thomas [Wilson] was a justice of the peace in Cumberland County, and one of the men who helped drive out squatter trespassers on the unpurchased lands of the Indians in 1750. He took up a large tract where Port Royal borough is situated. One tract was warranted February 3, 1755, and had two hundred and forty-two acres; the other, June 9, 1763, had one hundred and six acres. The lower tract he called “Armagh” [after his old home in Ireland] and the other “Addition,” surveyed, April 26, 1765, by William Maclay. George Armstrong’s land bounded above on the river. Wilson moved on his lands in 1771, and assumed prominence in the early settlement. He was called “Thomas Wilson, Creek,” to distinguish him from the one at the mountain. His son, George, sheriff of Mifflin County in 1791, and his grandson, Sheriff W. W. Wilson, of Mifflintown, recently deceased, were men well known in their day. [1]

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Port Royal, PA

Thomas and Mary Ann Wilson are my 4th-great grandparents. The last parcel of the original Wilson land was a farm that had been in the family for six generations until it was sold in 2002.






[1] Ellis, F. and A. N. Hungerford, ed. History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Everts, Peck & Richards, 1886.

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Glebe Cemetery, Juniata County, Pennsylvania