Ella B. Ensor Wilson (, Ensor; also known as, Mrs. Augustus Wilson; 1838 – September 11, 1913) was an American social reformer and writer of the long nineteenth century associated with the women's suffrage and temperance movements. She was a strong advocate of "equal rights" and although her birth place was in Maryland, a slave State, and having been reared and educated under that influence, she was always opposed to slavery. Wilson supported women's causes with her influence and money. A year and a half before her death, she was declared insane.
Early life
Eleanor (nickname, "Ella") Benson Ensor was born in Ensor Manor, Baltimore County, Maryland, 1838. She was the daughter of Gen. John S. Ensor and his wife Elizabeth. Her father had been largely interested in the pursuits of agriculture, legal and educational interest, but retired from business several years before his death, February 7, 1866, while his widow died in 1867.
There were eight children in the family, five sons and three daughters, including: James B. Ensor, John T. Ensor, Zadoc Ensor, and Laura Ensor Baker. Wilson was the eldest daughter and the fourth child of eight.
Career
Maryland
Immediately after having finished her education, she wrote a book on the history of trees, plants and flowers, with the language and sentiment in poetry. Wilson served as her father's private secretary during the Civil War.
Ohio
On December 1, 1863, she married Augustus Wilson (born 1836), of Ohio, in which State they settled, after traveling extensively in the U.S. and British America.
She was long identified with the woman suffrage movement, and in 1870, she was elected president of an association. She attended many State and national conventions of the woman suffragists.
In Ohio, she was active in temperance work, and was a member of the Good Templars in that state, where her influence and work were acknowledged.
Kansas
In 1874, the Wilsons removed to Parsons, Kansas, where Mr. Wilson engaged in business. She was an efficient worker in the "Murphy movement", being secretary of the Murphy organization in Parsons. She was also a contributor to the only representative temperance journal of the Southwest. In 1879, she was made a life member of the Kansas temperance union. In 1880, she was elected president of the congressional work of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in Kansas. In July, 1881, she was a delegate to the national prohibition convention, held in Chicago.
At the age of 15, she became a life member of the American Missionary Society in which she was an active participant both in works that pertianed to home and foreign interests. She was a liberal contributor to the Woman's Board of Foreign Missions in cooperation with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. In 1875, she assisted in raising money to found the mission home in Constantinople, Turkey.
In 1881, she memorialized both houses of Congress to secure homes in Oklahoma for the Exodusters. She served in many public enterprises, such as the Bartholdi monument fund, the relief association for drouth-smitten farmers in Kansas, and the New Orleans expositions. She was a trustee of the State Art Association of Kansas, a member of the Kansas Historical Society, and of a score of other important organizations.
By request of President Chester A. Arthur, Governor George Washington Glick, of Kansas appointed Wilson to be Lady Commissioner to the Industrial Cotton Centennial Exposition at New Orleans in 1883, where she achieved national distinction and honor for her state and herself.
She aided in founding the Parsons Memorial and Historical Library. Wilson was the leader in the movement to establish the library. She personally solicited money, books, lumber and merchandise from corporations, societies and merchants in the Eastern U.S., and from the citizens of the state generally, and liberally gave her time to the project. To celebrate the opening of the library, Wilson edited a volume of 400 pages with the title: Parsons Memorial and Historical Library Magazine. It contained an account of the library and the citizens who assisted in its establishment. Published in January 1885, the volume was well illustrated and bound in brown cloth.
After her husband's death in Parsons in 1885, the widow moved to her farm at Wilsonton, Kansas. She erected a large house, built in plain view of the trains passing on the Katy. In her elegant home, she had one of the finest private libraries in the state. Her walls were covered with the choicest paintings and works of art, while every available space was filled with statuary of the old masters and patriots of the world.