Joseph J. Wilson has been a prominent factor in the business and civic activities of Moran for the past fifteen years. He is now serving as postmaster, and in business affairs he is most widely known as a grain merchant.
His Wilson ancestors were colonial settlers in America. His grandfather, Thomas Jefferson Wilson, was born in Kentucky in 1787, the year the Constitution of the United States was framed in Philadelphia, and he remained a resident of Kentucky all his long life. He died in 1891, when in his nineties in Hart County, Kentucky. Thomas Benton Wilson, father of Joseph J., was born in Hart County, Kentucky, in 1834, and is now living at Bronson, Kansas. He spent many years as a farmer in Hart County, Kentucky, but in 1879 became one of the early settlers in Bourbon County, Kansas, locating on a farm. He had owned two farms near Bronson, and is now living in that town retired. In politics he is a democrat. Thomas B. Wilson married Elizabeth Winsted, who was born in Hart County, Kentucky, in 1834. Their children were: Thomas Jefferson, who is an oil operator at Moran, Kansas; Ira, an oil operator at Richmond, California; Lee, an oil contractor living at Moran; Oscar, a farmer living northeast of Bronson; and Joseph J.
Joseph Jocelin Wilson was born in Hart County, Kentucky, November 11, 1874, and was five years of age when brought to Kansas. He grew up in Bourbon County, attended the country schools, and had the usual training of Kansas farmer boys. He lived at home until twenty-two and after that took up the grain business. Mr. Wilson spent eighteen years in the grain business, three years at Bronson, and in February, 1901, he established his home at Moran. He continued to buy and sell grain at Moran until his appointment to the office of postmaster in July, 1913. He was appointed postmaster by President Wilson.
Mr. Wilson had served as a member of the town council of Moran six years, and spent five years on the Marmathon Township board. He is an active democrat, and also takes much interest in fraternal affairs. He is affiliated with Marmathon Lodge No. 245, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; Moran Lodge No. 21, Knights of Pythias, being past chancellor commander, having filled that office at Bronson two terms and at Moran two terms, and sat in the Grand Lodge of the state from Bronson two year and from Moran four years; he also belongs to Moran Camp of the Modern Woodmen of America and to the Kansas Fraternal Citizens.
Mr. Wilson owned besides his residence in the west part of town near the public park, the building in which the postoffice had its headquarters. He was married in January, 1902, at Bronson to Miss Myrtle E. Myers, daughter of J. H. and Mary E. Myers. Her mother still resided on a farm near Bronson. Her father, now deceased, was a farmer, and came to Kansas in 1880, locating first at Humboldt and then removing to Bourbon County. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson are the parents of three children: Joseph Myers, born January, 1903; Mary Bess, born in 1907; and Elizabeth Belle, born in 1909.