Commemorative Plaque, mounted on a stone memorial in the Bowling Green, Strabane, Co. Tyrone, Northern Ireland to mark the birthplace of this historic individual.
Thomas Woodrow Wilson, 28th Presedent of the United States of America.
The Wilson Family
James Wilson Jr. (1787-1850) Woodrow's grandfather
was born on 20 February 1787, in Strabane, County Tyrone, N. Ireland as the son of Robert Wilson (b.c1760) of Dergalt, Strabane, Co.Tyrone and Margaretta Unknown (c1757-1820). James married Ann Adams on 1 November 1808, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
They were the parents of at least 7 sons and 3 daughters. James died on 17 October 1850, in Steubenville, Jefferson, Ohio, at the age of 63, and was buried in the Union Cemetery, Steubenville, Jefferson, Ohio.
Ann Adams Wilson (1791-1863) Woodrow's grandmother was born on 19 December 1791, in County Antrim, N. Ireland as the daughter of John Adams (circa 1763-1811) and Mary Adams Park (c1765-1833). Ann died on 5 September 1863, in Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the age of 71, and was buried in the Union Cemetery, Steubenville, Jefferson, Ohio.
Siblings:
1. William Duane Wilson (1809-1877)
2. Mary Jane Wilson (1811–1856)
3. Robert Crawford Wilson (1813–1862)
4. James Emmett Wilson (1815–1865)
5. John Adams Wilson (1817–1873)
6. General Edwin Clinton Wilson (1820–1874)
7. Henry Clay Wilson (1820–1876)
8. Margaretta Wilson (1820–1885)
9. Joseph Ruggles Wilson (1822–1903)
10. Ann Elizabeth Wilson (1824–1905)
Joseph Ruggles Wilson (1822-1903) Woodrow's father was born on 28 February 1822 the youngest of seven brothers, in Steubenville, Jefferson, Ohio. His father, James Wilson Jr. and his mother, Ann Adams Wilson.
Joseph married Janet E. Woodrow on 7 June 1849, in Chillicothe, Ross, Ohio. They were the parents of 2 sons and 2 daughters. Joseph lived in Augusta, Richmond, Georgia in 1860 and Wilmington, New Hanover, North Carolina in 1880.
He died on 21 January 1903, in Princeton, Mercer, New Jersey, at the age of 80, and was buried in First Presbyterian
Churchyard, Columbia, Richland, South Carolina.
Janet E. "Jessie" Woodrow Wilson (1830-1888) Woodrow's mother
was born on 20 December 1830, in Carlisle, Cumbria, England, her father, Rev. Thomas William Woodrow (1793-1877) was born, Paisley, Scotland and her mother, Marion Helen Williamson (1791-1836) born Glasgow City, Scotland.
Janet died on 15 April 1888, in Clarksville, Montgomery, Tennessee, at the age of 57, and was buried in First Presbyterian Churchyard, Columbia, Richland, South Carolina.
Joseph Ruggles Wilson & Janet E. Woodrow's Siblings:
1. Marion Morton Wilson (1850–1890)
2. Annie Josephine Wilson (1854–1916)
3. President Thomas Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
4. Joseph Ruggles Wilson Jr. (1867–1927)
Marion Morton Wilson Kennedy (Woodrow's oldest sister) was born on 20 October 1850, in Washington, Pennsylvania.
Marion married Rev. Anderson Ross Kennedy (1842-1890) in 1869, in Spartanburg, South Carolina. They were the parents of 3 sons and 2 daughters, an infant daughter, Joseph Leland Kennedy, William Blake Kennedy, Woodrow Wilson Kennedy & Jessie Howe Kennedy Dyer.
Marion lived in Augusta, Richmond, Georgia in 1860 and Augusta, Woodruff, Arkansas in 1880. She died on 14 August 1890, in Batesville, Independence, Arkansas, at the age of 39, and was buried in Oaklawn Cemetery, Batesville, Independence, Arkansas.
Annie Josephine Wilson Howe (Woodrow's 2nd sister) was born on 8 September 1854, in Hampden Sydney, Prince Edward, Virginia.
She married Dr. George Howe Jr. (1848-1895) in 1873, in Columbia, Richland, South Carolina. They were the parents of 2 son and 2 daughters, Joseph Wilson Howe, George Howe, Jessie Woodrow Howe & Annie Wilson Howe Cothran Compton. Annie lived in Richmond, Georgia in 1860 and Princeton, Mercer, New Jersey in 1900.
She died on 16 September 1916, in Columbia, Richland, South Carolina, at the age of 62, and was buried in Columbia, Richland, South Carolina.
Joseph Ruggles Wilson Jr. (Woodrow's only brother) was born on 20 July 1867, in Augusta, Richmond, Georgia. He married Katherine (Kate) Francis Wilson (1868-1937) on 15 June 1892, in Montgomery, Tennessee. They were the parents of at least 5 daughters, an infant, twin daughters, Alice Wilson McElroy & Jessie Woodrow Wilson.
Joseph lived in Clarksville, Montgomery, Tennessee in 1900 and Nashville, Davidson, Tennessee for about 17 years. He died on 26 February 1927, in Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland, at the age of 59, and was buried in Clarksville, Montgomery, Tennessee.
The Axson Family
Rev Samuel Edward Axson, Ellen Axson's father was born 23 December 1836, in Waltourville, Georgia. In 1856, he enrolled at Oglethorpe College, to study for the ministry, and was ordained in 1859, assigned to the pastorate of Beech Island, South Carolina, a year after his marriage and a year before the birth of his daughter Ellen. Axson was the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Rome, Georgia. Edward Axson served in the Confederate Army as the First Regiment, Georgia Infantry chaplain from 1861 to 1863. He then assumed the Presbyterian Church pastorate of Madison, Georgia, relocating his family there and also serving as a teacher for the town’s children in a private school created by the community with classes being held in the Axson home.
Just after the Civil War ended, Axson accepted the pastorate of the First Presbyterian Church in Rome, Georgia, which had been decimated during the war and faced the challenge of rebuilding. Just prior to the death of his wife Margaret in 1881, Axson suffered a nervous collapse, the first in a series of
mental health problems that would trouble him for the rest of his life. He was hospitalized at the Milledgeville State Mental Hospital the following year and died two years later on 28 May 1884. All evidence suggests that he committed suicide.
Margaret Jane Hoyt Axson. Ellen Axson's mother was born 8 September, 1838, in Athens, Georgia. The last of six children, she was educated well at the Greensboro Female College in Greensboro, Georgia.
Enrolled there from 1853 to 1856, she won numerous academic awards and developed a voracious reading habit. Following her graduation, Janie took a job at the college, working there for two years as a teacher. She is one of the earliest known examples of a First Lady’s mother who was professionally employed prior to her marriage. Janie Hoyt (as she was known) married Edward Axson (as he was known) at the First Presbyterian Church, Athens, Georgia in 1858 in a ceremony over which both of their fathers presided. Herself a rapid consumer of all forms of literature, she inculcated her daughter Ellen with a similar passion of reading, both for pleasure and research. Jane Hoyt died on 1 November 1881, shortly after giving birth to her fourth child.
Siblings of Rev Samuel Edward Axson & Margaret Jane Hoyt Axson
1. Ellen Louise Axson Wilson (1860-1940)
2. Stockton Axson (1867–1935)
3. Edward William Axson (1876–1905)
4. Margaret Randolph Axson Elliott (1881–1958)
Ellen Louise Axson was born on 15 May 1860, in Savannah, Chatham, Georgia, her father, Rev. Samuel Edward Axson, a Presbyterian minister from Savannah, Georgia. Ellen Louise Axson displayed an impressive intellect at an early age, teaching herself trigonometry while excelling in English literature and French.
Although her family was unable to afford university tuition funds, Ellen continued her education via post-graduate classes at Rome Female College and long stints in the library. She later became proficient in German to conduct research for one of her husband’s books, and enjoyed reading the works of such luminaries as Plato, Homer, Milton and Keats.
Woodrow Wilson first laid eyes on Ellen when he was 6 years old and she was a baby. They met again in 1883, when he was a young lawyer visiting from Atlanta and attended a service held by Ellen’s father. Woodrow was able to arrange a visit to the Axson home, and a few months later he shrewdly scheduled a vacation that brought him to Asheville, North Carolina, at the same time as his wife-to-be. Although Ellen had long professed indifference towards marriage, his surprise proposal of marriage was made at the end of the trip in Sept 1883, she accepted, but they agreed to postpone marriage while Wilson attended graduate school.
Ellen graduated from Art Students League of New York, worked in portraiture, and received a medal for one of her works from the Exposition Universelle (1878) in Paris. She agreed to sacrifice further independent artistic pursuits in order to marry Thomas Woodrow Wilson on 24 June 1885, in Chatham, Georgia, United States.
She learned German so that she could help translate works of political science that were relevant to Woodrow's research.
Their 1st child, Margaret, was born in April 1886, and their 2nd, Jessie, in August 1887. Their 3rd and final child, Eleanor, was born in October 1889.
She was earning money for her crayon portraits by age 18, and she attended the prestigious Art Students League in New York for a year before devoting herself to family interests. Ellen later spent several summers at an artist’s colony in Old Lyme, Connecticut, where she was influenced by a group that formed the core of the American Impressionists. An exhibition of her work was displayed in Philadelphia’s Arts and Crafts Guild just before she entered the White House in 1913, and she sold four of her paintings that summer.
During her 17 months as first lady, Ellen famously guided politicians and civic leaders through Washington D.C.’s slums to draw attention to her “alley clearance
bill,” and she threw her weight behind causes to support the arts, schools and workforce conditions. However, she may have been most influential in her private time with President Wilson. Having studied political theory while helping her husband research his earlier books, the well-read first lady was more than capable of engaging in policy discussions.
It is unclear when Ellen became aware she had Bright’s Disease, the kidney ailment that killed her. Evidence of kidney problems had first surfaced following the complications of childbirth in 1889, but the first lady seemed fine until undergoing a nasty fall in March 1914. Her health deteriorated after she oversaw her daughter’s wedding in May, and even after a doctor moved into the White House in July, the truth of her fatal condition was not revealed to Wilson until days
before her death on 6 Aug 1914 at the age of 54, becoming the 3rd presidential wife to die in the White House up to that time. She is buried next to her parents in Myrtle Hill Cemetery, Rome, Floyd County, Georgia.
Woodrow Wilson & Ellen Louise Axson Wilson Siblings:
1. Margaret Woodrow Wilson (1886–1944)
2. Jessie Woodrow Wilson Sayre (1887–1933)
3. Eleanor Randalph Wilson McAdoo (1889–1967)
Margaret Woodrow Wilson was born on 16 April 1886, in District 411, Hall, Georgia. Margaret lived in Princeton, Mercer, New Jersey, for about 10 years and Washington, District of Columbia in 1920. She was unmaried and died on 12 February 1944, in Pondicherry, India, at the age of 57, and was buried in Pondicherry, India.
Jessie Woodrow Wilson Sayers was born on 28 August 1887, in Gainesville, Hall, Georgia. Jessie married Francis Bowes Sayre (1885-1972) on 25 November 1913, in Washington, District of Columbia. They were the parents of 2 sons and 1 daughter, Francis Bowes Sayre Jr., Eleanor Axson Sayre, Woodrow Wilson Sayre. Jessie lived in Princeton, Mercer, New Jersey in 1900.
She died on 15 January 1933, in Cambridge, Middlesex, Massachusetts, at the age of 45 and is buried in Nisky Hill Cemetery, Bethlehem, Northampton County, Pennsylvania.
Eleanor Randalph Wilson was born on 16 October 1889, in Middletown, Middlesex, Connecticut. Eleanor married Senator William Gibbs McAdoo Jr (1863–1941) on 7 May 1914. They were the parents 2 daughters, Ellen Wilson McAdoo Hinshaw & Mary Faith McAdoo Bush. Eleanor lived in Princeton, Mercer, New Jersey, United States for about 10 years and Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States for about 10 years. She died on 5 April 1967, in Montecito, Santa Barbara, California, United States, at the age of 77, and was buried in Santa Barbara Cemetery, Santa Barbara, California.
The Bollings Family
Judge William Holcombe Bolling (1837-1899). Edith Bolling's father was born on 21 May 1806 in Campbell County, Virginia, his father was Archibald Bolling, Jr. (1779-1825) and his mother was Jane Meadows / Bolling Randolph (1755-1796).
William married Sallie Spiers Bolling (White). They had 11 siblings, 6 sons and 5 daughters. William died aged 66 on 6 Jul 1899 and is buried in East End Cemetery, Wytheville,
Wythe County, Virginia.
Sallie Spiers Bolling (1843-1925) Edith Bolling's mother was also known as Sally", "Sarah" and was born on 5 Jan 1843 in in Virginia, her father was William Allen White (1879-1844) and her mother was Lucy McDaniel White Reese (1826-1907). Sallie died at the age of 82 on 21 November 1925 and is buried in East End Cemetery, Wytheville, Wythe County, Virginia.
Sibbligs of William Holcombe Bolling & Sallie Spiers Bolling
1. Rolfe Emerson Bolling (1861-1936)
2. Gertrude Bolling Galt (1863-1962)
3. Anne Lee Bolling Maury (1865-1917)
4. William Archibald Bolling (1867-1934)
5. Bertha Bolling (1869-1937)
6. Charles Rodefer Bolling (b.d.11 June 1871)
7. Edith Boling Galt Wilson (1872-1961)
8. John Randolf Bolling (1876-1951)
9. Richard Wilmer Bolling (1879-1951)
10. Julian Brandon Bolling (1882-1951)
11. Geraldine Bolling (1885-1887)
Edith White Bolling. Woodrow's 2nd Wife was born on 15 October 1872, in Wytheville, Wythe, Virginia. Wilson had little formal education. She 1st married Norman Galt (1864-1908), a jeweler on 30 April 1896, in Washington D.C. She had 1 daughter Celia Galtand & 1 son, Farmen Galt. Norman died on 28 January 1908, in Washington D.C. at the age of 43, and was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, Washington D.C. Edith lived in Virginia in 1872. She died on 28 December 1961, in Washington D.C., at the age of 89, and was buried in Washington National Cathedral, Washington D.C. In 2008 her birthplace in Wytheville was turned into a museum.
Edith was a descendant of the first settlers to arrive at the Virginia Colony. Through her father, she was also a descendant of Mataoka, better known as Pocahontas
the daughter of Wahunsenacawh. On 5 April 1614, Mataoka (then renamed as "Rebecca" following her conversion to Christianity the previous year) married John Rolfe (1585–1622), the first English settler in Virginia to cultivate tobacco as an export commodity.
Norman & Edith Galt's Siblings:
1. Celia Galt (1887–1938)
2. Farmen Galt (23 Sept 1903-25 Sept 1903)
Thomas Woodrow Wilson
was born on 28 December 1856, was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921.
A member of the Democratic Party. Wilson graduated from Princeton University (then called the College of New Jersey) in 1879 and went on to attend law school at the University of Virginia. After briefly practicing law in Atlanta, Georgia, he received a Ph.D. in political science from Johns Hopkins University in 1886. (Wilson remains the only U.S. president to earn a doctorate degree.) He taught at Bryn Mawr College and Wesleyan College before being hired by Princeton in 1890 as a professor of jurisprudence and politics.
From 1902 to 1910, Wilson was president of Princeton, where he developed a national reputation for his educational reform policies.
During his tenure, however, he also prevented enrollment of Black students at the university and in 1902, Wilson published a five-volume textbook, The History of the American People, which presented a romanticized view of the Confederacy and described the Ku Klux Klan, a violent terrorist group, as "roving knights-errant...an 'Invisible Empire of the South,' bound together in a loose organization to protect the Southern country of some of the ugliest hazards of a time of revolution."
Woodrow's Rise in Politics
In 1910, Woodrow was elected governor of New Jersey, where he fought machine politics (incentives, money, political jobs) and gathered national attention as a progressive reformer. In 1912, the Democrats nominated Wilson for president, selecting Thomas Marshall (1854-1925), the governor of Indiana, as his vice-presidential running mate. The Republican Party split over their choice for a presidential candidate: Conservative Republicans re-nominated President William Taft (1857-1930), while the progressive wing broke off to form the Progressive (or Bull Moose) Party and nominated Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), who had served as president from 1901 to 1909.
With the Republicans divided, Wilson, who campaigned on a platform of liberal reform, won 435 electoral votes, compared to 88 for Roosevelt and eight for Taft, becoming the first Southerner to do so since 1848.
At the age of 56, Woodrow Wilson was sworn into office in March 1913. He was the last American president to travel to his inauguration ceremony in a horse-drawn carriage.
Once in the White House, Wilson achieved significant progressive reform. Congress passed the Underwood-Simmons Act, which reduced the tariff on imports and imposed a new federal income tax. It also passed legislation establishing the Federal Reserve (which provides a system for regulating the nation’s banks, credit and money supply) and
the Federal Trade Commission (which investigates and prohibits unfair business practices). Other accomplishments included child labor laws, an eight-hour day for railroad
workers and government loans to farmers. Additionally, Wilson nominated the first Jewish person to the U.S. Supreme Court, Louis Brandeis (1856-1941), who was confirmed
by the Senate in 1916.
When World War I broke out in Europe in the summer of 1914, Wilson was determined to keep the United States out of the conflict. On May 7, 1915, a German submarine torpedoed and sank the British ocean liner Lusitania, killing more than 1,100 people, including 128 Americans. Wilson continued to maintain U.S. neutrality but warned Germany that any
future sinkings would be viewed by America as “deliberately unfriendly.” on 6 Aug 1914 woodrow's first wife died.
The first lady sustained a nasty fall in March 1914 afterwhich her health deteriorated, she oversaw her daughter’s wedding in May, and even after a doctor moved into the White House in July, the truth of her fatal condition was not revealed to Wilson until days before her death on 6 Aug 1914.
In the absence of a First Lady, Woodrow Wilson relied on his cousin, Helen Woodrow Bones, to serve as the official White House hostess. Edith Bolling Galt’s close friendship with Bones eventually led her introdution in March 1915 to the recently widowed President, 2 months later Woodrow proposed to her.
Woodrow was married on 18 December 1915 while serving his second term in the White House with Edith served as First Lady from that time until 4 March 1921.
In 1916, Wilson and Vice President Marshall were re-nominated by the Democrats. Wilson, campaigned on the slogan “He kept us out of war,” won with a narrow electoral margin of 277-254. Woodrow's second term in office was dominated by World War I. Although the president had advocated for peace initially, however in early 1917 German submarines launched unrestricted submarine attacks against U.S. merchant ships and at the same time, the United States learned about the Zimmerman Telegram, in which Germany tried to persuade Mexico to enter into an alliance against America. On April 2, 1917, Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany, stating, “The world must be made safe for
democracy.”
It was 1918, while riding in one of the White House automobiles through the country with Dr. Grayson, a personal friend of the president remarked that he would like to see some sheep at the White House, and that Mrs. Wilson would like to see this too. It was agreed to raise some Shropshire sheep on the White House lawn as a model family to support the war effort.
Over the preceding two years, auctions of the White House wool would yield $52,000 for the Red Cross.
America’s participation helped bring about victory for the Allies, and on November 11, 1918, an armistice was signed by the Germans. At the Paris Peace Conference, which opened
in January 1919 and included the heads of the British, French and Italian governments, Wilson helped negotiate the Treaty of Versailles. The agreement included the charter for the League of Nations, an organization intended to arbitrate international disputes and prevent future wars. Wilson had initially advanced the idea for the League in a January
1918 speech to the U.S. Congress in which he outlined his “Fourteen Points” for a postwar peace settlement.
The Senate voted on the Treaty of Versailles in November 1919 and again in March 1920. Both times it failed to gain the two-thirds vote required for ratification. The treaty’s defeat was partly blamed on Wilson’s refusal to compromise with the Republicans. The League of Nations held its first meeting in January 1920; the United States never joined the organization. However, in December 1920, Wilson received the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to include the Covenant of the League of Nations in the Treaty of Versailles.
On the night of 25 September 1919, on a train bound for Wichita, Kansas, Wilson collapsed from mental and physical stress, and the rest of his tour was canceled. On 2 October 1919, Edith Wilson found her husband unconscious on the floor of his private bathroom after he had suffered a debilitating stroke that left him partially paralyzed.
Wilson’s wife Edith assumed what she called the “stewardship of the presidency,” a constitutionally unprecedented role that led her to keep the full extent of Wilson’s health condition secret from Congress and his own cabinet. The nation spent the next 17 months not knowing Wilson’s condition or prognosis.
Woodrow Wilson’s second administration saw the passage of two significant constitutional amendments. The era of Prohibition was ushered in on January 17, 1920, when the 18th Amendment, banning the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcohol, went into effect following its ratification one year earlier. In 1919, Wilson vetoed the National Prohibition Act (or Volstead Act), designed to enforce the 18th Amendment; however, his veto was overridden by Congress. Prohibition lasted until 1933, when it was repealed by the 21st Amendment.
Also in 1920, American women gained the right to vote when the 19th Amendment became law that August. Wilson had pushed Congress to pass the amendment. That year’s presidential election, the first in which women from every state were allowed to vote–resulted in a victory for Republican Warren Harding (1865-1923), a congressman from Ohio who opposed the League of Nations and campaigned for a “return to normality” after Wilson’s tenure in the White House.
After leaving office in March 1921, Woodrow Wilson resided in Washington, D.C. He and a partner established a law firm, but poor health prevented the president from ever doing any serious work. Wilson died at his home on 3 February 1924, at age 67. He was buried in the Washington National Cathedral, the only president to be interred in the nation’s capital.
After Woodrow's death Edith Wilson devoted the rest of her life to honoring his legacy, serving as a founder of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation in Staunton.
