4 o2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



had a liumor wliich enabled him at times to joke about his neces- 

 sities. He had a gift of satire, also, which got him into some 

 trouble, but which was the cause of his taking the first step in the 

 path that led to fame. Industrial affairs in Great Britain at that 

 time were greatly unsettled. Many of the Paisley weavers were 

 unemployed, and capital and labor were arrayed against each 

 other. Some of the turbulent spirits among his fellow weavers 

 induced the enthusiastic young Wilson to use his talent for verse- 

 making to abuse the capitalists. Several poems of his, portraying 

 in no flattering light certain local petty tyrants, were adjudged 

 libelous, and Wilson, who manfully acknowledged their author- 

 ship, was fined heavily, and condemned to burn the poems in pub- 

 lic. Being unable to pay the fine, he was sent to jail. 



In this hour of gloom, Wilson's eyes were turned to the New 

 World. Attracted by the chances for winning his way open to a 

 free man in a new country, he determined to emigrate. Accord- 

 ingly, he and his nephew, William Duncan, sailed from Belfast 

 Loch, Friday, May 23, 1794, and after a voyage of over seven weeks 

 landed at Newcastle, Delaware. Wilson was then twenty-eight 

 years old. He and young Duncan went first to Wilmington, and 

 from there to Philadelphia, looking for employment at weaving. 

 At the latter place, he writes in his first letter home to his father 

 and step-mother, " we made a more vigorous search than ever for 

 weavers, and found, to our astonishment, that, though the city con- 

 tains between forty and fifty thousand people, there is not twenty 

 weavers among the whole, and these had no conveniences for 

 journeymen, nor seemed to wish for any: so, after we had spent 

 every farthing we had, and saw no hopes of anything being done 

 that way, we took the first offer of employment we could find, and 

 have continued so since." This employment was in the shop of a 

 copper-plate printer. The above quoted letter was a long and very 

 newsy one, and contains Wilson's first observation of the feathered 

 creatures that were to make his fame. He writes : " As we passed 

 through the woods on our way to Philadelphia, I did not observe 

 one bird such as those in Scotland, but all much richer in color. 

 We saw a great number of squirrels, snakes about a yard long, 

 and some red birds, several of which I shot for our curiosity." 



Wilson remained in his first found employment but a few 

 weeks. After that he worked at his trade of weaving at a place 

 ten miles north of Philadelphia, and for a short time in Virginia. 

 In 1795 he tramped through northern New Jersey as a peddler. 

 He had been in America but little over a year when he took up 

 school-teaching, and at this occupation he succeeded remarkably 

 well, although it gave him only a scanty income. He first opened a 

 school at Frankford, but soon gave it up to become master of the 

 school at Milestown, in Philadelphia County, where he taught for 



