WILSON, John, clergyman, born in Windsor, England, in 1588; died in Boston, Massachusetts, 7 August, 1867. He was the son of Dr. William Wilson, prebendary of St. Paul's, of Rochester and of Windsor, who had been chaplain to Edmund Grindall, archbishop of Cnnterbury, and grandnephew of Sir Thomas Wilson, secretary of state to Queen Elizabeth. Young Wilson was educated at Eton and at Cambridge, where he was graduated about 1606. He studied law three years at one of the inns of court, and took orders in the Church of England, but soon became conspicuous for his Puritanical leanings, he preached at Mortlake, Henley, Bumstead, Stoke, Clare, and Candish, and for several years was minister of Sudbury, Essex, where he was repeatedly suspended or silenced by the bishop's court for his opinions, but was befriended by Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick. Becoming interested in the colonization of Massachusetts, he and many of his neighbors embarked on 8 April, 1630, in the great fleet with John Winthrop and his associates of the Massachusetts company. He landed at Salem on 12 June, and soon afterward removed to Charlestown, where he preached under a tree, and on 30 July organized what was subsequently the 1st church in Boston, to which place the majority of the members soon removed. He was ordained teacher of the church on 27 August by imposition of hands by the several communicants. In 1631 he sailed for England, where he remained until May, 1632, and was ordained pastor in November of the latter year. He again visited England in the autumn of 1634, and remained absent a year. Soon after his return the Antinomian controversy arose in his congregation, and Governor Winthrop and Wilson fought stoutly against the faction that was led by Anne Hutchinson. While this discussion was pending, an expedition was sent against the Pequots, and Mr. Wilson was selected by lot as its chaplain. For this service he received a grant of 1,000 acres of land in what is now Quincy. He also accompanied the Indian apostle, John Eliot, in his visit to the native settlements, and labored among the savages. He outlived two colleagues in the ministry, John Cotton and John Norton, and was left at the age of seventy-six with the entire charge of his congregation on his hands. He continued in the active discharge of his duties until finally disabled by a fatal disease. Of his character Cotton Mather has said: "Indeed, if the picture of this good and therein great man were to be exactly given, great zeal with great love would be the two principal strokes that, joined with orthodoxy, should make up his portraiture." Besides many occasional productions, the titles of which are unknown, Mr. Wilson published "Some Helps to Faith," a theological treatise (London, 1625); "Famous Deliverances of the English Nation," a poem (1626; new ed., Boston, 1680); a Latin poem to the memory of John Harvard ; and a tract, "The Day Breaking, if not the Sun Rising, of the Gospel with the Indians in New England" (1647 ; new ed., New York, 1865).