Hugh Wilson was born on March 16, 1794, in North Carolina.[1] He graduated from Princeton University and received a master's degree from the Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey.[1] He later received a Doctor of Divinity from Austin College in Huntsville, Texas.[1]
From 1822 to 1832, he served as a Presbyterian missionary to the Chickasaws.[1] He then served as a Presbyterian minister in Tennessee from 1832 to 1837.[1] In the summer of 1837, he visited Texas for the first time. Shortly after, in the spring of 1838, he moved to San Augustine, Texas.[1] On June 2, 1838, he founded Bethel Presbyterian Church, four miles west of San Augustine.[1][2] It is now known as the Memorial Presbyterian Church and has been relocated to San Augustine.[3] From 1838 to 1840, he taught and served as an administrator at Independence Female Academy, a women's college in Independence, Texas.[1]
In 1839, he founded the Mount Prospect Presbyterian Church in what was then known as Chriesman Settlement (later known as Gay Hill, Washington County, Texas).[1][4] It was the second oldest Presbyterian church in Texas.[4] He also helped organize the Brazos Presbytery the following year, inviting Presbyterians from all over the country to convene in Chriesman Settlement.[4]
When the Texas House of Representatives met in Washington-on-Brazos in 1844, he served as its chaplain.[1] Two years later, in 1846, he served as a Presbyterian minister in four several churches, within a radius of 100 miles.[1] Meanwhile, he also helped establish Austin College, first located in Huntsville, Texas (it later moved to Sherman, Texas).[1]
In 1850, he moved to Lee County, Texas.[1] Two years later, in 1852, he founded the String Prairie Church, where he served as the pastor until his death.[1]
He married Ethalinda Hall on June 12, 1822.[1] She died in 1856. Later that year, he got remarried to Elizabeth Loughridge Reid.[1] He had four daughters.[1]
He died on March 8, 1868, in Lee County, Texas.[1] He was buried near Tanglewood in Lee County, Texas.[1]