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34 2 THE MAKING OF THE MAN D eath and controversy plagued Robert E. “Lee” Wilson early in his life. Born during the final weeks of the Civil War, he faced not only the reduced circumstances common to most southerners in that era but also endured additional burdens. When his father died in July 1870, his older half sister challenged his right to inherit. She failed in her effort to deny him a part of their father’s estate, but the death of his mother of yellow fever in 1878 left him an orphan and under the power of those who had tried to disinherit him. Determined to secure his patrimony, he seized control of his inheritance in 1882 by successfully petitioning the court to recognize his right to transact his own business free of his guardian’s oversight . Only seventeen at the time, he began to lay the foundation of a small empire. A member of the generation that came of age during the tumultuous decades of Reconstruction and Redemption, he embodied Henry Grady’s model of a New South entrepreneur born out of chaos and destruction. He used what he had at his disposal, a small inheritance in the Arkansas swamps, and earned a reputation for a single-minded pursuit of profit and a determination to impose his will upon those who opposed him. The series of intrigues and tragedies that confronted him in his first two decades of life inculcated in him a strong desire to overcome obstacles in any manner necessary. His assumption , at a very early age, of responsibility for dependent members of his extended family imbued him with a sense of paternalism that later influenced all of his relationships, including those with his employees, both black and white, both menial and white collar. Within days of Josiah’s burial in the old cemetery in Randolph, Tennessee, a battle over his estate exposed a long-simmering discord among his children. Josiah’s failure to execute a will sparked the conflict, and his tardy marriage to Martha threatened to undermine Lee’s expectations. On one side stood Josiah’s second wife, Martha Parson Wilson, who represented her sons, Lee, age five, THE MAKING OF THE MAN 35 and William Henry, age ten. Martha also spoke for her thirty-year-old “deaf and dumb” stepdaughter, Missouri, who lived in her household. She faced Viola Wilson Lafont and her second husband, Napoleon Lafont, who had taken over management of Josiah’s Arkansas property when the elder man retired to Memphis in 1869. Martha’s oldest child with Josiah, Victoria, remained strangely silent in the early phase of the court proceedings, but her husband, Dr. James Davies, later became a mediating force between the disputants. Because Josiah held property in both Tennessee and Arkansas, separate probate courts held jurisdiction. The challenge to Lee’s inheritance actually began in Tennessee when Napoleon Lafont, representing his wife, filed a petition in the Memphis Probate Court arguing that because Martha’s sons were “born out of wedlock,” they were not entitled to inherit from the estate of their father. Martha defended her sons’ patrimony by citing an Arkansas statute, “If a man have by a woman a child or children and afterward shall intermarry with her and shall recognize such children to be his, they shall be decreed and considered as legitimate.” Martha’s position on this matter necessarily prevailed , and on September 12, 1870, the court awarded her the use of the house and its furnishing and $5,000 to support her household—which included Lee, William Henry, and Missouri—for one year.1 But the battle for control over the estate was far from over, and some months of intense negotiation subsequently ensued. On March 17, 1871, Lafont designated Davies as spokesperson for his wife’s interests, and three days later the contestants finally agreed to divide $16,635.38 in cash assets held in Tennessee equally between Josiah’s widow and five children. One crucial concession Martha made concerned the title to the house on Poplar Street, a home Josiah had purchased for them in 1869. She relinquished any claim in the ownership of the home in exchange for the right to remain there for the rest of her life. Josiah’s five children inherited equal shares to the house.2 More important to Lee’s future, however, was the disposition of the Arkansas property. On the same day that the Shelby County Court rendered its...

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