Find Ancestors and Your Family History with Biographies
  

WAS born, December 21, 1806, in Duchess County, New York. The story of his childhood and youth is the heroic story of privation and toil, which we find written against many of the world's best and noblest names.

By what means his attention was aroused, and he made sensible of his need of an education, we do not know; but the legend of the plow-boy following his plow, on which is fastened a Dictionary, he studying as he goes, is well authenticated, and indicated an early awakening, which resulted in a strong, unconquerable resolve.

With this purpose he entered the Cazenovia Seminary, New York, then under charge of Professor Augustus W. Smith, LL. D. Rev. J. E. Robie, editor of the Buffalo Advocate, in an editorial reference to Mr. Wilber, made after the tidings of his death had reached him, says:." President Wilber was our room-mate at Cazenovia nearly thirty years since, and we. have vivid recollections of his fine, manly appearance. We were both then struggling for an education. He was a choice spirit, a noble man, and a true friend.  "Having completed his preparatory studies, he entered the Wesleyan University, at Middletown, Connecticut, Rev. Wilber Fisk, LL. D., president.

In a memoir prepared by Bishop D. W. Clark, D. D. he says: " In a class of unusual excellence, Mr. Wilber maintained a high position, and in 1834 graduated with high honor."

Immediately on leaving college, he was employed in the White Plains Academy, New York ; but before the close of the first year he was elected professor of Ancient Languages in the Cazenovia Seminary, where had pursued his preparatory studies. In the Fall of 1838 the presidency of that institution was offered to him; but, having previously encouraged the trustees of the Buckingham Collegiate Institute, in Virginia, that he would accept the presidency of that institution, he did not feel that it would be honorable to disappoint them.

After four pleasant years in the Buckingham Institute, he accepted the presidency of the. Methodist Female Collegiate Institute—since the Wesleyan Female College—of Cincinnati, 0.  Its first session commenced on the first Monday in September, 1842, and upon that day, so memorable in the lives of thousands throughout the Mississippi Valley, President Wilber entered upon the last and crowning work of his life. Into a community exacting in its demands, and  severe in its judgments, the stranger came, manly, yet unpretending in his personal appearance; in his speech unostentatious, and in a private room, and with a handful of scholars, he quietly commenced his labors.

At once the pupils were classified and teachers employed for each department, thus laying the very foundations broad and deep. At the close of the first year one hundred and twenty-four students were in attendance. At the close of the second year ultimate success was no longer problematical. But not alone was the multitude pleased. The elite of literary circles had been silently watching the man. Another year of earnest, unpretending toil settled the question. The teacher was a brother; the nobility of intellect claimed. their kinsman; and from that hour till the sadder hour when they mourned over the good man fallen, their sympathy, their influence, and their active cooperation was his.

He was a man of marked individuality, possessing that iron firmness and intense determination. which march straight on to the accomplishment of their ends, over and through any obstacles which may oppose their course.

His unostentatious charity deserves to be remembered. He gave constantly and freely, but as the Bible directs. The poor ever found in him a sympathizing and constant friend, and many students have been assisted by him to obtain an education whom the world never knew as the recipients of his bounty. In his dealings with men he always remembered, in whatever station he found them, that they were brethren, and, manifesting this in his daily intercourse, his example was not lost upon them.

A single incident, which occurred the morning of his death, upon the Cincinnati Landing, will serve to illustrate this eloquence of a blameless life. One gentleman met another upon the crowded wharf, and repeated those fearful words which on that morning sped from lip to lip, and cast a gloom over the whole city, "Mr. Wilber is dead." The one addressed was about to express his astonishment, when a drunken man near by, Who had been for some time making his vicinity hideous with fearful oaths and bacchanalian yells, staggered up and said to the speaker, " Who did you say was dead?" "President Wilber," was the reply. "Well," exclaimed the now sobered man, "if any one ever went to heaven, he has gone there;" and walked quietly away, leaving bystanders to wonder at the miraculous change.

The telegraph wires spread the news of his sudden death throughout the country, and former pupils and family friends gathered from long distances to pay to his remains the. last tribute of affectionate respect. The funeral at 'Wesley Chapel, June 14, 1859, constituted a grand triumphal scene, if this appellation may be used when tears take the place of smiles, and sobs of grief are substituted for shouts of jubilant welcome. All whom he had loved on earth were around him; men honored in Church and state performed the last rites of religion and affection; voices, whose music had been sweeter to him by far than the melody of any others, sang in subdued strains his requiem ; and the ill-restrained sorrow of multitudes attested an appreciation of his life and services which of itself were worth the toil of years. Flowers, sanctified by the tears of one who for twenty-three years had walked with him the path of usefulness, filled his coffin, and .wreathed themselves upon his lid, a strange, sweet tribute to the husband's abounding love of the beautiful. And so they bore him, in a long, long procession, back through the streets he had so often threaded in weariness--back past his desolate. home, on till they reached the quiet spot which he himself had selected in the beautiful cemetery of Spring Grove, where they laid him down to his silent slumber.

"He rests, from his labors, and his works follow him."