Every county has its “firsts”—births, marriages, and deaths. In McDonough County, the first recorded marriage was that of John Wilson and Martha Vance.

John Martin Wilson was born in 1806 in Jackson County, Tennessee, the son of Hugh Sr. and Susan (Skiles) Wilson. He came to the area with other pioneer families seeking land and opportunity.

Martha Ramsey Vance, born between 1804 and 1806, was the daughter of James Sr. and Margaret (Reno/Reneau) Vance. James was the “third white man to settle in the county and for a time the only white man living here as the two earlier settlers had moved on,” according to an historical article in the Industry Press written by his grandson. Vance also helped lay out the city of Macomb in 1831 and served as one of the first county commissioners. He was also the first postmaster of Industry.

John and Martha were married by Baptist minister, Rev. John A. Logan on Thursday, October 30, 1828, in what is now southeastern Industry Township. At the time, McDonough County had not yet been formally organized, so their marriage license was filed in nearby Schuyler County, which still held jurisdiction over the region.

A charming detail of the wedding survived through family memory. In 1938, their grandson, Lawrence D. Wilhelm, told the Industry Press that on their wedding day the couple walked barefoot most of the way to the fort, carrying their shoes and stockings. They put them on for the ceremony, then took them off again for the walk home—a simple solution in a place where such items were hard to come by.

The couple first lived in a log house constructed by John on section 23 of Industry Township. In this home their six sons and six daughters were raised. By 1854, the Wilsons left their log cabin for a new frame house built about a quarter mile away on the same section. The new house was built of black walnut lumber. In 1938, it was still standing and was being used as a barn.

In 1878, John Wilson shared with S. J. Clarke his life story as the latter wrote Clark’s History of McDonough County. In the interview Wilson shared how he began farming with one horse and three cows and broke his land with a borrowed plow. “After this, I made a wagon myself entirely of wood, the wheels of which were made solid and hewed out of a large tree. There being no iron about it, I had to keep it well-soaped to keep it from being set on fire by the friction,” shared Wilson.

Wilson also shared that he had raised large fields of cotton and flax, from which his family made all their goods. As a young man, while his wife sat spinning at night and weaving cloth, he lay near the hearth learning how to read and write from what he called a “United States Spelling and Primer Book.”

Meat for the table often came from hunting. Wilson said he hunted with an “old flintlock gun” he had traded for at the time he came to the county – the gun being old and having done such service even when he traded for it.

Wilson named many of the wild animals found near their farm including wolf, wildcat, fox, lynx, badgers and even black bear. Wilson often hunted with his dogs or a neighbor’s hounds to bring meat to the table, but on one occasion, he found a fawn left by its mother, which he adopted as his pet.

John and Martha shared 53 years of married life. Martha passed away first, and John followed her five years later. They raised twelve children—six daughters and six sons—and helped anchor one of the county’s earliest families. John, Martha, and their first seven children now rest in Vance Cemetery in Industry Township.

Their children were: Elizabeth Wilson (Mrs. John Young), Mary Vance Wilson (Mrs. William Springer), Hugh Wilson, Jr. (married Harriet Hobart), Sarah Wilson (Mrs. Collin Cordell) , James Vance Wilson (married Permelia Adkisson and then her sister, Clarice Adkisson), Susannah A. Wilson (Mrs. Andrew Jackson Wilhelm), William Vance Wilson (married Elizabeth Wilhelm), Christopher Columbus Wilson (married Elizabeth Reno), twins – Rufus Ramsey Wilson (married Martha Hardrader) and Lewis Ramsey Wilson ( married Emma Merrick), Margaret Ramsey Vance Wilson (Mrs. James Pleasant Shannon), and Martha R. Wilson (Mrs. William Ross Reed).

Twins Rufus and Lewis Wilson both served in the Civil War and made it through the war without a scratch to return to the area.

©Pioneers of the Past is furnished by Julie L. Terstriep, of the McDonough County Genealogical Society, facebook.com/mcdcgs, https://www.mcdcgs.com/pioneers-of-the-past/

John Martin Wilson and Martha Ramsey Vance Wilson in the late 1870s near their golden wedding anniversary.