Richard Thornton Wilson

Richard Thornton Wilson ( in Habersham County, Georgia – November 26, 1910 in New York City) was a multimillionaire American investment banker known for being the father of five children who all married into prominent families during the Gilded Age of New York. Early life Wilson was born in Habersham County, Georgia in about 1829, to William Wilson (d. 1849) and Rachel Wilson (1797–1870), a Scottish tanner and shoemaker. Career After the death of his father in 1849, he needed to find employment, so he went to Dalton, Georgia and began working as a clerk in a store owned by Levi Brotherton, a Methodist clergyman and missionary. After saving his money, he started a "general merchandise" business with W. R. High, taking his business on the road. He would buy items in Atlanta and then sell them or trade them for cotton. During this period, he met the Orme brothers {not otherwise referenced; source needed} , who both worked for the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad. After heading towards Knoxville, Tennessee, and finding himself exhausted in Loudon, Tennessee, he slept on the doorstep of the town's mercantile store, owned by Ebenezer Johnston. Johnston, a South Carolina native, owned 712 acres of farmland, a large manor house and slave quarters. After Johnston saw Wilson's work, he agreed allow Wilson to marry his daughter in 1852 and to finance business ventures for Wilson. They stayed in Loudon until late 1860, when he moved his growing family to Nashville, Tennessee.