Henry Wilson was born in Pasquotank County, North Carolina, April 8, 1791, the son of Joseph and Sarah (Charles) Wilson. Orphaned as a child, he grew up in a Quaker family in Guilford County, North Carolina. In 1816 he married Deborah Coffin (1794-1855) of Guilford County, the daughter of Matthew Coffin, who about this time became one of the first settlers in the Blue River Friends community in Washington County, Indiana. The Wilsons moved to Blue River in 1817. In Indiana, Henry Wilson became a leading Friend, serving as clerk of his monthly meeting and an elder. Later he was recorded a Friends minister. He made at least two long trips to the east as a companion to other Quaker ministers, James White and Eleazar Bales. At the time of the Hicksite Separation in 1828, he was one of the leaders of the Orthodox group at Blue River, even though his sister-in-law Priscilla Coffin Hunt was the leading Hicksite minister in Indiana Yearly Meeting. He was also a member of the Boarding School Committee when Friends Boarding School (now Earlham College) opened in 1847. Although he had been a saddler in his youth, in Indiana he took up the practice of medicine, and is usually referred to as Dr. Henry Wilson. Deborah Wilson died in 1855, and in 1856 Henry Wilson married a widow at Blue River, Martha (Cosand) Albertson (1810-1894). He died July 12, 1863.

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