When the Hon. William B. Wilson died in 1873, his funeral notice summoned Masons, firemen, city officials, and county supervisors, a roll call of the public and fraternal life of Astoria.
When William B. Wilson was buried in February 1873, the invitation printed in the New York Daily Herald read less like a family notice than a roll call of Astoria. Relatives and friends were asked to attend, and so were the members of Advance Lodge No. 635 and of Architect Lodge, the men of Jackson Engine Company No. 1, the government of Long Island City, and the Board of Supervisors of Queens County. Wilson was a Mason, a member of Advance Lodge, and also a public man. In that notice the two sit side by side. They seem to have done so in his life as well, in a young city on the East River where lodge, fire company, and city hall drew on many of the same men. (1, 2)
A Notice That Read Like a Roll Call
The death notice was brief. Wilson died at Astoria, Long Island City, on Saturday, February 8, 1873, after a long sickness, aged 52 years, 10 months, and 5 days. The Herald styled him “the Hon. William B. Wilson, supervisor of Long Island City.” The funeral was set for Wednesday, February 12, from his late residence in Astoria. (2)
On the same page, Architect Lodge ordered a special communication for the same day. Its brothers were summoned to the lodge rooms at the southeast corner of Eighty-sixth Street and Third Avenue, at ten o'clock, to attend the funeral of “our late brother, William B. Wilson.” The place matters. It shows that his Masonic ties ran beyond Queens, and that by the time of his death more than one lodge counted him as its own. (2)
Two Years in Albany's Orbit
Wilson's name had been in the newspapers for years before that. In November 1866, the New York Times printed the Assembly tickets across the state, and the Queens County ticket carried his name as a candidate. When the results were tallied in the papers early in January 1867, the Buffalo Post's Assembly list for Queens included “William B. Wilson, D.” beside the second district. (3, 4)
He was still a political figure that August. A Brooklyn Union item, passing along a Flushing Journal report on who might next represent the district, called him the present incumbent. Newspapers of the period kept a running record of who held a seat, who wanted it, and who was being talked about. By that measure, Wilson was part of the county's political conversation for several years running. (5)
Roads, Rivers, and Commissions
Public life in those years was not only a matter of conventions and ballots. In December 1869, the Brooklyn Eagle reported that Queens County was receiving “her share of improvements,” and listed the commissions that Judge Armstrong had appointed. Wilson was named a commissioner for opening Broadway in Newtown. The same notice named him to the commission for extending Jamaica Avenue to the river. (6)
Appointments of this kind put a man in front of property owners and neighbors, usually in the unglamorous business of deciding where a road should run. They also suggest the kind of standing a judge could trust with it. Wilson was a candidate, an officeholder, and a person the county called on when practical work needed doing.
Nine Votes Short
His ambitions did not always succeed. At the Democratic Assembly convention for the Second district, held in the last days of September 1871, the Sunday Mercury reported an unusual harmony within the party. It was, the paper noted, the first time in many years that Queens Democrats had gathered without contesting delegations. Wilson and James M. Oakley were the aspirants, and a third candidate withdrew. On the formal ballot Oakley received ten votes and Wilson nine. Oakley's nomination was then made unanimous. (7)
Nine votes against ten is close, and it also shows how Wilson stood in the party. He was close enough to the center of Queens Democratic politics to be a serious contender, and in 1871 that was not quite enough.
The City's Supervisor
The next year brought a different result. In March 1872, as the New-York Tribune reported, the Long Island City Democratic convention met on a Saturday and named a ticket headed by Henry S. De Bevoise for mayor, with William B. Wilson for supervisor. The race that followed was hard fought. The opposing ticket was backed by independent Democrats and Republicans, and was headed by the sitting mayor, Mr. Ditmars. On April 2, the city turned out in record numbers, with roughly 2,500 ballots cast, the largest total yet in Long Island City, and De Bevoise won by a margin of under 150 votes. (8, 9)
Wilson won as well. The Brooklyn Union and the Brooklyn Eagle both reported him elected supervisor over the Republican candidate Aaron Bisbee, and the Brooklyn Daily Times listed him as the probable winner while returns were still coming in. It was an important seat that year. The Union observed that interest in Queens County centered on the supervisors, because the incoming board would name the location of the proposed new courthouse. Wilson went to that board as Long Island City's supervisor, in a county that was about to settle a question people cared about. (9, 10, 11)
Where the Circles Met
He held the office less than a year. By February 1873 the Herald was printing his death notice, and Astoria's institutions were being called to his funeral one after another: the fire company, the city government, the county's supervisors, and his brothers from two lodges. Newspapers of the day preserved a man's standing in ways that were easy to overlook, through election returns, convention reports, commission appointments, and funeral notices. Taken together, those scattered items show Wilson's standing more clearly than any single one could. (2)
The lodge rooms and the council chambers of post-Civil War Queens were not separate places. A man who held office in one was often known in the other, and neighbors who sat in the lodge also worked on the fire company and voted in the same elections. William B. Wilson of Advance Lodge No. 635 moved among all of them, and the invitation to his funeral listed them together. It reads as plain proof that, in Astoria in 1873, the roles he had held in public life, in the fire company, and in the fraternity were one standing, which the whole community came to honor at his funeral. (1, 2)
Endnotes
Lodge Records
- Advance Lodge No. 635, F. & A.M., membership records identifying William B. Wilson as a member. Return to text
Newspapers
- New York Daily Herald, February 11, 1873, p. 13: death notice of the Hon. William B. Wilson, supervisor of Long Island City, with funeral invitation, and special communication of Architect Lodge. Return to text
- New York Times, November 4, 1866, p. 3: “The November Elections,” Queens County Assembly ticket. Return to text
- Buffalo Post, January 3, 1867, p. 2: Assembly results, Queens County. Return to text
- Brooklyn Union, August 19, 1867, p. 4: political item reprinting the Flushing Journal. Return to text
- Brooklyn Eagle, December 13, 1869, p. 3: “Road Commissioners for Queens County.” Return to text
- Sunday Mercury, October 1, 1871, p. 5: “Long Island News,” Democratic Assembly convention, Second district. Return to text
- New-York Tribune, March 25, 1872, p. 7: Long Island City Democratic convention nominations. Return to text
- Brooklyn Union, April 3, 1872, p. 4: “Long Island Politics,” town and city election results. Return to text
- Brooklyn Daily Times, April 3, 1872, p. 3: Queens County election returns. Return to text
- Brooklyn Eagle, April 4, 1872, p. 4: Queens County election results. Return to text
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