Samuel Wilson
AKA:
“Uncle Sam”
Samuel Wilson
(September 13, 1766 - July 31, 1854) was a meat-packer from Troy, New York whose
name is purportedly the source of the personification of the United States,
known as "Uncle Sam". Samuel was born in historic Arlington (known as Menotomy
at the time), Massachusetts, to parents originally from Greenock, Scotland. The
Uncle Sam Memorial Statue marks a site near his birthplace. As a boy, he moved
with his family to Mason, New Hampshire. In 1789, Samuel and his brother
Ebeneezer moved to Troy, where they went into business. In 1797, Samuel married
Betsey Mann of Mason and brought her back to Troy with him. They had four
children and lived in a house on Ferry Street. Samuel Wilson died at the age of
87 in 1854 and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Troy.
At
the time of the War of 1812, Samuel Wilson was a prosperous middle-aged
meat-packer in Troy. He obtained a contract to supply beef to the Army in its
campaign further north, which he shipped in barrels. The barrels, being
government property, were branded with the initials "U.S.", but the teamsters
and soldiers would joke that the initials referred to "Uncle Sam", who supplied
the product. Over time, it is believed, anything marked with the same initials
(as much Army property was) also became linked with his name.
The
87th United States Congress adopted the following resolution on September
15, 1961: "Resolved by the Senate and the House of Representatives that the
Congress salutes Uncle Sam Wilson of Troy, New York, as the
progenitor of America's National symbol of Uncle Sam." Monuments mark his
birthplace in Arlington, Massachusetts, and site of burial in Oakwood Cemetery,
Troy, New York. Another sign marks "The boyhood home of Sam" outside his second
home in Mason, NH. The first use of the term in literature is seen in an 1816
allegorical book, The Adventures of Uncle Sam in Search After His Lost Honor
by Frederick Augustus Fidfaddy, Esq., also in reference to the aforementioned
Samuel Wilson.