The American revolution had caused economic hardship and after the death of Wilson's mother, Mary McNab, his father remarried and moved to Auchinbathie.

Wilson got a little bit of schooling but spent time herding livestock and at thirteen he apprenticed with his brother-in-law William Duncan.

[3] In addition to ballads and pastoral pieces, Wilson wrote satirical commentary on the conditions of weavers in the mills.

Wilson taught at the Milestown School in Bristol Township, the present-day East Oak Lane neighborhood of Philadelphia, for five years from 1796 to 1801.

Eventually, Wilson settled into a position at Gray's Ferry, Pennsylvania, and took up residence in nearby Kingsessing.

There, he met the famous naturalist William Bartram, who encouraged Wilson's interest in ornithology and painting.

[10] An image entitled "Swedish Lutheran Church", which depicts an apparently elderly individual mourning at the grave of Wilson,[11] was drawn by Thomas Sully (1783–1872), engraved and printed in 1828 by Cephas G. Childs and B. Rogers, respectively, and published in a book of landscapes, Views of Philadelphia (1827–1830).

A memorial on the banks of River Cart, near the Hammills rapids and waterfall, commemorates Wilson's connection to that city.