-WILSON, HENRY (1812-1875), vice-president of the United States from 1873 to 1875, was born at Farmington, N.H., on 16fh February 1812. His proper name was Jeremiah J. Colbath. His parents were day-labourers and very poor. At ten years of age he went to work as a farm-labourer. The boy was greedy for reading, and before the end of his apprenticeship had read more than a thousand volumes. At the age of twenty-one, for some unstated reason, he had his name changed by Act of the Legislature to that of Henry Wilson. Walking to Natick, Mass., he learned the trade of shoemaker, and by it supported himself through the Concord academy. After successfully establishing himself as a shoe manufacturer, he became a noted public speaker in support of Harrison during the presidential election of 1840. 'For the next ten years he was regularly returned to the State legislature. In 1848 he left the Whig party and became a "Free Soiler." The Free Soil party nominated him for governor of the State in 1853, but he was defeated. In 1855 he was sent to the United States Senate by the Free Soil and Democratic parties, and remained there by re-elections until 1873. When the Civil War broke out he found a severe test awaiting bins. Ile had been deeply interested from 1840 until 1850 in the militia of his State, and had risen through its grades of service to that of brigadier-general. Ile was now made chairman of the military committee, and in this position performed most laborious and important work for the four years of the war. The position offered boundless and safe opportunities for becoming wealthy. But so far was Wilson from using them that be died poor, owing to his necessary neglect of his private affairs. Sumner says that in 1873 Wilson was obliged to borrow a hundred dollars from him to meet the expenses of his inauguration as vice-president. The Republicans nominated Wilson for the vice-presidency in 1872, and lie was elected ; but he died, before completing his term of service, at Washington on 22d November 1875. He left two small but useful works, Anti-Slavery Measures in Congress (Boston, 1864) and Military Measures in Congress (Hartford, 1868), and a larger work in three volumes, The Rise and Fall of time Slave Power in America (Boston, 1871-76). His Life has been written by E. Nason and by J. B. Mann.