Colonel Willis Wilson, Esq. was an early Portsmouth landowner who took up the cause of the new nation during the American Revolution.

Serving as a Colonel of the 5th Regiment of Artillery, he supported the Continental Army in its struggle against British forces despite Portsmouth serving as a British military headquarters.

Following the war, Wilson remained devoted to his community as a highly respectable magistrate for Norfolk County. He was a member of one of the town’s founding families, who were among the very first purchasers of land in Portsmouth.

Wilson died at the age of 50. He was buried here, where a poetic epitaph long remembered him as a brave, benevolent, and fiercely independent leader.