Wilson, Joshua Lacy, Dd

Wilson, Joshua Lacy, D.D.

a Presbyterian divine, was born in Bedford County, Va., Sept. 22, 1774, and in the fall of 1781 removed to the neighborhood of Danville, Ky., with his mother and stepfather, John Templin, father of Terah Templin. He was brought up to the trade of a blacksmith, and had no education beyond what his mother gave him till he was twenty-two years old. At that period he was converted. He soon after commenced the study of law, but abandoned it for theology; was licensed to preach in 1802, and in 1804 was ordained pastor of Barcstown and Big Spring churches, Ky. In 1805 he sat as a member of the Commission of Synod in the Cumberland difficulties. In 1808 he became pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, where he remained for thirty-eight years, part of the time teaching a classical school. In the great controversy, which divided the Presbyterian Church in 1837, he bore an active and prominent part. He died Aug. 14, 1846. Dr. Wilson was a self-educated man, of unbending integrity, candor, and conscientiousness. For thirty-eight years he was at the head of every social, moral, and intellectual enterprise of the day in Cincinnati, and to his personal influence Cincinnati College is largely indebted for its existence and prosperity. He published, Episcopal Methodism, or Dagonism Exhibited (1811), and a number of sermons and theological pamphlets. See Sprague, Annals of the Amer. Pulpit, 4:308; Allibone, Dict. of Brit and Amer. Authors, s.v. Davidson, Hist. of the Presb. Church in Kentucky, p. 364-366. (J.L. S.)