John Wilson (ca 1740 – 1820) was an American patriot, planter, merchant and politician who represented Pittsylvania County, Virginia three times in the Virginia House of Delegates as well as at the Virginia Ratifying Convention, and later helped found the town of Danville which now owns a home erected by his son[1][2] Born possibly in North Carolina, else in then-vast Halifax County, he was the son of Peter Wilson who patented land on the north side of the Dan River near Sandy Creek in 1746.
The family included eight children, of whom his sister Agnes married Peter Perkins, who established the Berry Hill plantation and would serve in many offices alongside this man, as discussed below.
[4] Wilson also held various local offices at times, including sheriff, vestryman of Camden parish, and overseer of the poor.
[19] Wilson's last will and testament, which bequeathed Dan's Hill and other property to his seventh son Robert (upon the condition that the houses not be transferred until after the death of his wife) was recorded in 1820.
None of John Wilson's sons carried on his political activism, although distant relatives (through his father) became governors in North Carolina and Georgia.
Peter Wilson, the eldest son and who had served on the Committee of Safety with his father and others in 1775, and received payment for ferry service during the American Revolutionary War, purchased Berry Hill in 1795 when Peter Perkins moved to North Carolina to better supervise an iron forge.
Wilson married Samuel Pannill Hairston who built Oak Hill plantation in 1823, and who supposedly owned 2,000 enslaved people in Virginia and North Carolina by the time of his death.