Able, Wilson

Born: 1791-1841 North Carolina

Able was living with his family in Cape Girardeau, Missouri until 1820, when he moved across the Mississippi River to Alexander County, Illinois, where he founded Able's Landing, a large docking facility near present-day Cairo where steamboats and flat-boatmen sold and replenished supplies and purchased wood for fuel. A prominent businessman and landowner, Able won election as sheriff of Alexander County in 1830 and served as the first director of the Bank of Cairo. He was a "Loco Foco" Democrat who served in the Illinois House of Representatives from 1832 until his death in 1841. He served as School Commissioner for Alexander County for two terms beginning in 1833 and 1837, and in 1838 he received an appointment as Postmaster of Smithfield and served until 1841. He married Ann Camron [Cameron], with whom he had at least three children.

United States Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of Eminent and Self-Made Men: Missouri Volume (New York: United States Biographical Publishing, 1878), 2:554; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac, 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 203-205, 207, 209; Record of Appointment of Postmasters, 1832-1971, NARA Microfilm Publication, M841, 145 rolls, Records of the Post Office Department, RG 28, 1832-1844, 12B:474, National Archives Building, Washington, DC; William Henry Perrin, ed., History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties, Illinois (Chicago: O. L. Baskin, 1883), 2:462-464, 467, 499.