He moved with his parents to Keene, New Hampshire, in 1815, and graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont in 1820.

Wilson served as member of the New Hampshire State militia 1820-1840 and was successively promoted from captain to major general.

He served as delegate to the Whig National Convention in 1840 and was Surveyor general of public lands in the Territories of Wisconsin and Iowa 1841–1845.

Wilson was elected as a Whig to the Thirtieth and Thirty-first Congresses and served from March 4, 1847, to September 9, 1850, when he resigned.

[2] He served as chairman of the Committee on Expenditures in the Post Office Department (Thirtieth Congress).