Meet the Real Uncle Sam

The model was a lanky meat packer from Troy, New York. But he became a symbol for the ages during his own lifetime

Few persons know that Uncle Sam was a real person and that he became the symbol of the U.S in his own lifetime.

Samuel Wilson (widely known as "Uncle Sam") was a meat packer in Troy, New York, who was awarded a subcontractor by Elbert Anderson, of New York City, to supply the War Department during the War of 1812. Each barrel of salted meat was stamped with a small "E.A." for Elbert Anderson and a big "U.S." six inches high for United States.

"Being asked by some of his fellow workmen" an eyewitness wrote, "the meaning of the mark (for the letters U.S., for United States, were almost entirely new to them) [somebody] said that he did not know unless it mean Elbert Anderson and Uncle Sam-alluding exclusively, then, to the said 'Uncle Sam' Wilson."

Everybody around Troy knew Uncle Sam-hence the speed with which the joke caught on. Soon the "U.S." stamped on wagons, muskets and uniform buttons came to mean that those articles belonged to Uncle Sam. Our witness says that the story spread through the army, then the whole country.

William Henry Jackson, the noted photographer, wrote: "Uncle Sam was to pay quite a price for his distinction: for 40 years, simple people, as well as many not so simple, pestered him to set them up in business or, in the very least, to supply them with farms..."

What did Uncle Sam look like?
Lucius Wilson, a great-nephew of Sam Wilson, said that "in form and carriage he greatly resembled Abraham Lincoln. He was tall, well-preserved... had high cheek bones, was clean-shaven and wore his grey hair rather long." He has a good sense of humor. When Lucius Wilson was a small boy he often visited his Uncle Sam. "Sent to take a pail of soup to Grandma, I stopped first to see him and when I delivered the pail... it contained nothing but water which he had substituted. Uncle Sam enjoyed the joke but Grandma called him 'an old trickster'."

The first printed mention of Uncle Sam was in broadside in the spring of 1813. Reference to Uncle Sam came more and more often until he finally displaced Brother Jonathan as the human symbol of the U.S. Brother Jonathan, a lanky, rural New Englander has stood for the common man, while Sam represented the U.S. Government.

The "Uncle Sam" character remained beardless until the Civil War. During this period the bearded Lincoln was often pictured in stars and stripes. Hence when Thomas Nast, the great cartoonist began to draw his Uncle Sams in the '7s, he chose a bearded version. Uncle Sam has had a beard ever since.

Sam Wilson was born September 13, 1766, in Menotomy, Massachusetts, the seventh in a family of 13 children. Sam was going on nine when Paul Revere rode out from Boston right past the Wilson place, warning of the British.

In 1780, when Sam was 14, his father, Edward Wilson, transported the family by ox cart to Mason, New Hampshire. Sam grew up in Mason, and there he fell in love with, and later married pretty Betsy Mann.

Soon after arriving in Troy, in 1789, Sam and his brother Ebenezer, established a brickyard, the first in the area. In 1793, the Wilsons entered the meat-packing business. At various times Sam Wilson also sold barrels, salt, flour, fruit, whisky and dry goods. His long life (he lived to be 88), he often declared, was traceable to getting plenty of sleep and rising at the crack of dawn.

He had a reputation for being scrupulouly fair, and was known for his readiness to help others with loans or gifts. In 1833, when a freshet swept away part of his brickyard, those he had helped through the years subscribed an amount sufficient to cover his loss.

Uncle Sam, the symbol, filled the voud left by the overthrow of the British crown. And he has been filling it ever since. Some say Uncle Sam is archaic. Maybe so. But he represents the sturdy individualism so much prized by Americans. One suspects that he will be around for quite a while.

Source: Coronet, November 1960
The Man Who was Uncle Sam by Alton Ketchum

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