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Biographical History of Cherokee County, Iowa
W. S. Dunbar & Co., Chigago - 1889

[page 523-524]

  EZEKIEL L. WILSON, a highly esteemed farmer of Tilden Township, Chero-
  kee County, was born in Randolph County, North Carolina, October 13,
  1825.  When he was four years old his parents, SAMUEL and RUTH (THORN-
  BURGH) WILSON, also natives of North Carolina, removed to Indiana, and
  settled near Richmond, Wayne County.  They remained there five years,
  and then went to Hamilton County, Indiana, where our subject grew to
  manhood.  He was reared to the life of a farmer, and enjoyed the ad-
  vantages afforded by the old-style district school.  He did not go out
  from the protecting shelter of the parental roof until he was twenty-
  six years old, but continued to work on his father's farm; after he
  was twenty-one he shared the crops with his father.  Mr. WILSON was
  married in his twenty-sixth year, April 4, 1853, to NAOMI H. STANLEY,
  daughter of ABEL and RACHEL (RAYL) STANLEY.  She was born in Guilford
  County, North Carolina, August 14, 1819, and was reared in Hendricks
  County, Indiana.  They are the parents of four children; two died in
  infancy.  NATHAN was born December 20, 1856; he is the present justice
  of the peace in Tilden Township, and was married to ANNA HISEY, a
  native of Ohio.  SYLVANUS C. was born March 15, 1859, and is living
  at home, having lacked one year of finishing his course at college.
  After his marriage Mr. WILSON continued to live in Hamilton County
  until 1864, when he decided to go still farther west, and came to
  Iowa, settling in Marshall County.  There he made his home until 1883,
  when he came to Cherokee County and settled on his farm in Tilden
  Township.  This place contains 240 acres, fifty of which had been
  broken, but aside from this there were no improvements.  Mr. WILSON
  at once erected a small house, in which the family lived while the
  main portion of their present roomy dwelling was being built. He has
  also built a barn and sheds for the protection of live-stock, and
  granaries.  His farm buildings are as fine as nay in the county, and
  he has brought his land to an advanced state of cultivation.  He has
  planted three acres of grove, which adds very much to the beauty of
  the surrounding landscape.  He occupies his time exclusively in farm-
  ing and stock-raising, and takes an active interest in the propagation
  of the better grades of stock, his preference being for short-horn
  cattle.  However, Mr. WILSON has not stood alone, but has had the
  assistance of a helpful, sympathetic wife in all his struggles.  It
  would seem that our subject was born to be a pioneer. He assisted his
  father to clear a farm in Indiana, and afterward cleared one for him-
  self in the same State; he then came to Iowa, and has opened up two
  farms since coming here, one of 116 acres in Marshall County, and his
  present place of abode.  He afterward bought fifty acres that were
  improved.  Politically he is an active worker in the Republican ranks.
  He has served as school director, and filed the office very acceptably.
  He and his wife are members of the Society of Friends, and are among
  the most highly respected people in the county.

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