Wilson, William Dexter

(Feb. 28, 1816-July 30, 1900). Widely published writer in mathematics, philosophy, and church history. He was born in Stoddard, New Hampshire, and graduated from Harvard Divinity School in 1838. After four years as a Unitarian minister, he joined the Episcopal Church. Wilson was ordained deacon on Apr. 7, 1842, and priest on Sept. 21, 1847. From 1842 to 1850 he served a church in Sherborne, New York, and in 1850 became an instructor in moral and intellectual philosophy in Geneva (later Hobart) College. In 1868 he became professor of moral and intellectual philosophy at the newly founded Cornell University. In 1887 he became the dean of St. Andrew's Divinity School, Syracuse, New York, where he lived until his death. He was the author of The Church Identified (1848) and The Foundations of Religious Belief (1883).