After fighting Native Americans, in 1774 Col. Wilson moved across the Allegheny Mountains, settled in the Tygart valley and founded "Wilson's Fort" (which he defended during the American Revolutionary War)[3] and later represented what was then Monongelia County in the Virginia General Assembly and became first clerk of the Harrison County court.

[4] This Benjamin Wilson's maternal grandfather, William Martin (1763–1851), had been a patriot as well, serving as commissary for New Jersey troops before settling in Harrison County.

Voters elected Wilson along with Unionist John S. Carlile as their delegates to the Virginia Secession Convention of 1861.

[9] Later, he and Judge Gideon D. Camden (who owned slaves in both censuses) moved southward into Virginia after Union forces captured much of Harrison County.

After the adoption of West Virginia's second Constitution in 1872 (which re-enfranchised Confederates, among other changes), Wilson was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention that year.