From NKAA, Notable Kentucky African Americans Database (main entry)
Wilson, James H. (minister)
(born: 1865 - died: 1944) Rev. J. H. Wilson was born in Shelbyville, KY, the son of Henry and Mariah Lawson Wilson. He attended school in Jeffersonville, IN, and taught for three years in Missouri. He was licensed to preach in 1885 and was a pastor in Glasgow, Missouri, before being transferred to California in 1904. He helped organize Wesleyan AME Church [later St. Paul AME Church] in San Bernardino, and was appointed the presiding elder of the California Conference in 1905. Rev. Wilson was next appointed to a mission conference, which he built into two conferences and was presiding elder for 23 years. Rev. Wilson was Grand Master of the Masons, Royal Grand Patron of the Eastern Star, and a member of the Grand Joshua Heroines of Jericho. He was editor of Western Christian Recorder from 1928 until his death in 1944. The newspaper was founded at the 1890 AME General Conference in Columbus, OH. It was published privately by J. Frank McDonald in Kansas City, Kansas until 1904 when it was adopted by the General Conference. For more see Rev. J. H. Wilson in The Encyclopaedia of the African Methodist Episcopal Church compiled by Bishop R. R. Wright; and A History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church by C. S. Smith and D. A. Payne [available online at Google Book Search].
