Wilder History

 

 

Bosworth Field.  August
22, 1485, Leicestershire, England. 

The War of the Roses, fought on and off for 30 years came to an end at a decisive battle between the House of Lancaster, whose symbol was a red rose and the House of
York, whose symbol was a white rose.  Richard III was the King of England and head of the House of Lancaster.  Henry Tutor had designs on replacing him as monarch.  Henry had been in Normandy, France raising an army.  When he felt that
he was ready, he and his men sailed to England, landing in Wales.  Not only did Henry intend to become king, he swore an oath to marry Edward IV’s daughter, Elizabeth of York, to unite the warring houses of York and Lancaster.  This was seen by many to be a noble undertaking.  (History does not record what Elizabeth thought of this, as this was well before “Happy wife, Happy
Life”.) 

Henry and his men were successful, and even managed to find and kill Richard III in the battle.  Note that this is the same Richard III whose body was found
under a parking lot in England in 2013.   This battle is also the basis of William Shakespeare’s play Richard III. In which Richard delivers the classic line “A horse, a horse!  My kingdom for a horse!” before he is killed.  And he did marry Elisabeth, they had four children, including Henry VIII.

So why am I beginning a family history lesson by writing about a battle in England that happened 533 years ago?  Because one of my direct ancestors was there.  Not only was he there, he was on the
winning side.  Nicholas Wylder (Wilder) came to England in the Invasion in 1485 with the army of the Earl of Richmond, under the leadership of Henry Tutor.  For his services and apparently his great fighting ability, on April 15, 1497, the newly
crowned King Henry VII granted to him an estate called Sulham Estate, in Berkshire County.   Along with the estate, he was granted a Coat of Arms, shown here.   The descriptions are in old English.  Drove Spell Check nuts.

Arms: “Gules, from a fews, Or. Charged with two barrules Azure.  A demi lion rampani issuant of the second.”

Crest: “A savage’s head affrontee, couped at the shoulders, the temples  entwined with woodbines, all proper.”

Motto: “Virtuti
Moenia Cedent” (The strongest will yields to persistence).

My parents, Edward and Dulcenia went to England and after a bit of research learned that Sulham was near Pangbourne,
in Berkshire, not far from Reading and not very far from London.  They got a Reading phone book and started calling all the Wilders listed.   The third call produced an amazing amount of information, including the names of the owners of Sulham
House and their phone number.  So my folks contacted and visited Sulham Estate, and our relatives who still owned and lived there.  They did this in 1985 while on a trip to Europe for their 50^th wedding anniversary.  The relatives were (or are) Mr. and Mrs. Michael Moon.  Mrs. Moon’s maiden name was Wilder.  My folks had a delightful time, toured Sulham House which
was built about 300 years ago.  During WWII it was used as a military staff headquarters so had been camouflaged and had not been bombed.  Adjoining Sulham land was Nunhide which was also Wilder property.  It had been purchased by Nicholas Wylder
in 1496.  It was called Nunhide because nuns had hidden there during the time of Oliver Cromwell. 

So back to old Wilder history.  Five or six generations
later, Francis Wilder, born in England in 1625 immigrated to the Maryland Colony sometime before 1652.  He died in Maryland in 1705, leaving one son, John and three daughters, Assence, Mary and Ann. 

Now jumping ahead four generations, we come to another key relative, at least as she was a determining factor in my immediate family’s history.  Susan Key Egerton (b 1795) married Captain Edward Wilder
(b 12/10/1779) in 1811.  Captain Wilder served as a Captain in the Maryland Calvary Troup in the War with England of 1812.  He and Susan had a store and operated a farm in St. Mary County, MD on a homestead called Bashford Manor.  After his
death in 1828, his widow and their five small children set out in 1830 for St. Louis MO to build a new home.  But one of her slaves came down with smallpox on board the boat.  There was a smallpox quarantine line at Louisville, KY, so the boat captain
unloaded her and her family and furniture on the wharf at Louisville.   They remained in Louisville, where they contributed much to the city.  She died in 1879, aged 84 years. 

Now, a bit more about the contributions to Louisville by these Wilder relatives.  There were three male children of Susan and Captain Wilder: James Bennett, Oscar and Edward III.  The boys started busines as traveling drug
salesmen.  Family history has it that they had a medicine wagon and held revival type of shows with entertainment, including cowboys and Indian shows with real cowboys and Indians in order to attract crowds.  At these shows they hawked their medicines,
including Wilder’s Worm Syrup.  I still have one of their Worm Syrup bottles.  My father said that he thought that the syrup was basically alcohol with some kerosene mixed in.  Who knows, but if you had worms it probably would either kill
them or make them leave.  Not a pleasant thought. 

The boys graduated from the traveling medicine show business and started a very successful wholesale drug business in
Louisville with James as the President.  James also helped to develop transportation facilities in and around Louisville, and was a Director of the railroad that became the Louisville and Nashville System.  He was also the Director of the Woolen
Mills, the Louisville Banking System and a Trustee of the University of Louisville.

In 1840 he married Emma Courtenay, who died in 1872 while they were building a large home
in the Buechel area in Louisville.  The new home was named Bashford Manor for his father’s old home in Maryland, and also because his mother was a descendent of Lord Baltimore whose family place in England had the same name. 

Emma and James had two children, Emma born in 1841 and Graham born in 1843.  Graham married Edith Vaughn in 1885.  They had 7 children two of whom died in infancy.  The youngest of the
children was Edward Wilder, my grandfather.

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The following section was written by my mother in 1998:

Much of the Wilder family history has revolved around the will written by James Bennett Wilder in 1887 and probated upon his
death May 23, 1888.  When the trust was finally divided in 1994 there were 16 beneficiaries.  Nearly 20 beneficiaries had died since the creation of the trust in 1888.  At the time of the termination of the trust it was worth $2,341,000. 
I think this is amazing.  James B. Wilder, with his brothers Edward and Oscar created a Wholesale Drug business that grew and flourished in Louisville enabling him to create a trust, the income from which supported his grandchildren and benefited his
great and great great grandchildren.  It was distributed 106 years after his death.

The trust he created for his grandchildren (his children Graham and Emma Wilder Hast both being dead)
consisted of the residue of his estate.  He directed that it should be “held together as a whole until twenty-one years after the death of the last survivor of his grandchildren – when it shall be divided among the descendants of said grandchildren.” 
There were five Wilder grandchildren” Nell Oscar, James B. Edward and Ethel.  The four Hast grandchildren were Emma, Etta, Lisette and Louis, all of whom died without issue.

Ed
said that his great grandfather wrote his will this way because he thought his grandchildren might squander the money, where as the next generation (Ed, Rob, Edith etc.) would not be supported by the trust and would have to go to work, so would use the money
wisely.  As it turned out the trust was divided in 1994, twenty-one years after the death of Aunt Ethel.

There were two lawsuits against the trust.  In 1958 when Cousin Lisette,
the last of the Hast decedents died, she willed the half of the trust that she had inherited to several schools and environmental organizations.  The court ruled that this was unlawful, so the Hast part of the trust was added to the Wilder inheritance.

The second suit was after the death of Aunt Ethel Wilder Bailey in 1973.  She willed her portion of the trust to be divided among her three adopted children.  After much deliberation the court
ruled in favor of the adopted children, stating that even though the will reads “direct issue” adopted children are accorded full rights of inheritance.

 

My Grandfather, that is my father’s father, was the Edward Wilder, or Dad Wilder referred to above.  As his Grandfather James B. Wilder predicted, he did
not have to work.  There was enough income coming to him from the trust such that he and his wife and family could live comfortably without him having to have a job.  He was a skilled amateur carpenter who restored and made furniture, some of which
is still in the family.  However, he also was an alcoholic and went on drinking binges where he would disappear for days on end.  This must have been enormously distressing to his proper southern wife, Ellen Adele Borie Wilder (b 1884). 

She was the youngest of eight children born to Alfred Borie of Bordeaux, France and Kate Ruby a Kentucky girl.  Adele, as she was called, and Edward had three children, Edward Junior
(my father), Edith, and Robert. 

We called her Mimi, a name given to her by my oldest sister Ellen, when she couldn’t say Grandmother.  She played the piano and instilled
in her children a love of music.  She was a gracious hostess, a wonderful cook, an avid gardener and a proud member of the Daughter of the American Revolution, the D.A.R.  (This, and the next two paragraphs were written by my Mother.)

During her life she suffered several severe tragedies.  First was the death of her only daughter Edith, who at the age of twenty-three died when her second baby was born.  Mother (Mimi) and
Dad Wilder took baby Edith to raise.  She was an adorable, blond, curly-haired darling who helped them recover from the loss of their daughter.  When little Edith was about two and a half years old, her father who had remained close to the family
decided that his two girls should be raised together.   Mother Wilder, in her head, knew that this was best, but it nearly broke her heart to have this precious child moved to the home of her other grandmother.

Later she had another tragedy, the loss of her forty-two-year-old son Rob.  He was killed while felling a large tree, leaving a wife and two young children.  This was almost more than she could bear. 
By this time she had nursed Dad Wilder during a long fought losing battle with cancer (he smoked a pipe, which resulted in mouth cancer), so she was left with little money and no close family in Louisville.  (My folks then lived in Los Alamos NM.) 
Finally, after much deliberation. It was decided that she should live in the Episcopal Church Home in Louisville.  She never became reconciled to this and after a few months, died at the age of seventy-five. 

I have already written about my father’s history: http://www.afewthingsilearned.com/408737001 and about my mother’s
family: http://www.afewthingsilearned.com/434352686  .  And if you have read this far you already know that my mother has written quite a bit about her
life.  For completeness, I may add additional pieces of these writings later.    But for now, that is it for family ancestor history.