- Edmund Wilson, Sr.
Edmund Wilson, Sr. (
December 15 ,1863 –May 15 ,1923 ) was an American lawyer who served as theAttorney General of New Jersey from 1908 until 1914. He was the father of literary criticEdmund Wilson .Wilson was born in
Shrewsbury, New Jersey in 1863 to Thaddeus and Charlotte Ann Wilson. He attendedPhillips Exeter Academy and enteredPrinceton University in 1881. [http://books.google.com/books?id=vdgDAAAAYAAJ "Scannell's New Jersey's First Citizens and State Guide"] , Vol. 2 (1919/1920).] At Princeton he edited the student newspaper with his brother John. In his senior year, he led a rebellion against the faculty and was "rusticated" from the university, made to live inKingston, New Jersey .Dabney, Lewis M. "Edmund Wilson: A Life in Literature" (2005) ISBN 978-0374113124] He graduated in 1885 and studied law atColumbia Law School . After attaining his law degree he went into practice inRed Bank, New Jersey in the office of Henry M. Nevius. He entered into partnership with Nevius in 1898.In 1903 Wilson was retained by the
United States Attorney General William Henry Moody as special assistant in Justice Department cases against New Jersey bank officials in violation of theNational Banking Act . He served on the State Board of Education, and in June 1907 was appointed to the State Board of Railroad Commissioners.He resigned from the Railroad Commission when he was appointed
Attorney General of New Jersey onNovember 17 ,1908 by Republican GovernorJohn Franklin Fort after the resignation ofRobert H. McCarter . He was appointed for a full term in 1909 and continued to serve under Fort's Democratic successor,Woodrow Wilson (no relation to Edmund). [http://nj.gov/oag/oag/ag_1908-1914_wilson_bio.htm Official bio] , Office of theAttorney General of New Jersey . AccessedMarch 30 ,2008 .]During Wilson's term as Attorney General, dozens of influential members of the Atlantic County Republican machine were prosecuted for corruption, including longtime Atlantic City boss Louis Kuehnle. The indictments were made using a little-known law providing for grand juries to be drawn by specially appointed "elisors" in order to avoid influence from the Atlantic County sheriff, who was suspected of hand-selecting the grand jury lists. [Paulsson, Martin. [http://books.google.com/books?id=WpF0JkNo14gC "The Social Anxieties of Progressive Reform: Atlantic City, 1854-1920"] (NYU Press, 1994).]
Wilson married Helen Mather Kimball (
April 20 ,1865 – February 1951) in 1892. Their only child, Edmund Wilson, Jr. (bornMay 8 ,1895 in Red Bank), was a noted writer and literary critic. According to biographer Lewis M. Dabney, Edward Jr. was influenced by his father's broad-minded social and political outlook. Dabney writes that Edward Sr., though a lifelong Republican, was "part of a genteel liberal tradition that was disappearing by the time his son was coming of age. He had a wide variety of friends unusual for an upper-middle-class WASP of his time, including blacks and Jews; on occasion he would even bring a Socialist friend home to dinner." Among Edward Sr.'s close friends wasSigmund Eisner (great-grandfather of Walt Disney CEOMichael Eisner ), with whom he worked to improve the Red Bank school system.In the spring of 1923, Wilson developed pneumonia in
Talcottville, New York at an unheated stone house long owned by the Kimballs, his wife Helen's family. He died upon his return to Red Bank. [ [http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0A1FFD3C5416738DDDAF0994DD405B838EF1D3 Obituary] . "The New York Times ",May 16 ,1923 . AccessedMarch 20 ,2008 .]References
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