Wilson, Joseph P.

Joseph P. Wilson was born in Columbia Falls, Maine on March 16, 1823. Wilson, along with George F. Brott and C.T. Stearns, purchased and platted the land that would become Lower Town of St. Cloud, Minnesota. Wilson studied law in Geneva, Illinois and in 1846 enlisted for the Mexican War as part of an Illinois regiment. After the war, Wilson married Mary P. Corbett and moved to St. Anthony Falls, Minnesota in 1850. Upon arriving in Minnesota, Wilson became involved in real estate, purchasing property in what is now northeast Minneapolis and in St. Anthony Park. Wilson also purchased property in what would become St. Cloud. He also worked in the lumbering, mercantile, and railroad business. He served as a Ramsey county commissioner from 1852 to 1855, was a member of the 1858 Minnesota constitutional convention, and served as a Minnesota state senator from 1864 to 1865.

Wilson was an original landowner in the new city of St. Cloud, Minnesota.

He moved to St. Cloud in 1863 and built a house in East St. Cloud in 1888. It was here that he platted more city lots and lived until his death on February 18, 1900. His wife Mary and their five children survived him - Justus A. Wilson (1851), Ida Wilson Van Cleve (1854), Franklin B. Wilson (1859), Edith Wilson Thompson (1861), and Helen Wilson Schwartz (1865). Wilson is buried in St. Cloud's North Star Cemetery.

Joseph was the brother of one of St. Cloud's founders, John L. Wilson.