WILSON, Thomas, merchant, born in Harford County, Maryland, 5 February, 1789 ; died in Baltimore, 2 September, 1879. His parents were members of the Society of Friends, and removed to Baltimore in 1798. The son received a plain education, and at the age of seventeen was apprenticed to Thorndick Chase, a merchant of Baltimore, trading with the West Indies and the Spanish Main. He was advanced by Mr. Chase to the post of chief clerk before he was nineteen, and upon attaining his majority became a partner in the firm of Brown and Wilson. He spent much of his time from 1811 till 1816 at La Guayra, Venezuela, as resident partner of his firm; but during the war of 1812 he returned to Baltimore and organized a line of small vessels to run from Boston to Folly Landing, Virginia, whence their cargoes were transported overland to Onancock, and thence by boats to Baltimore. While engaged in these ventures he narrowly escaped capture by the British on several occasions. In 1857 he retired from mercantile business, and confined his operations to dealing in securities, he was identified with many of the manufacturing interests of Maryland and Pennsylvania, was a member of the Maryland colonization society, and for many years president of the Baltimore manual labor school, in which charity he took great interest. During the civil war of 1861-'5 he was a firm supporter of the National cause. By his will he devoted $625,000 to various charities, endowing the Thomas Wilson sanitarium for children--an institution designed to take care of sick children during the summer months--with $500,000; and a fuel-saving society--to aid deserving poor people to purchase their fuel cheaply, and sewing-women to obtain sewing-machines at low cost--with $100,000.