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Wilson, Allen Benjamin

inventor, was born Oct. 18, 1824, in Willet, N.

Y. His first patent bears the date of Nov. 12, 1850, and is the fifteenth on the patent office record for an improved sewing-machine. The first machine, completed early in 1851, was sold for $125, and for a time this output was limited to eight or ten machines a week, but the demand soon increased, and they removed to Bridgeport, where they established the largest factory of its kind in the world, making six hundred machines a day. He died April 29, 1888, in Woodmont, Conn.

WILSON, MRS. AUGUSTA JANE (EV- ANS), author, was born May 8, 1835, in Columbus, Ga. She was a popular novelist living at Mobile. Her writings had at one time an extraordinary vogue, but are now much less read. She is the author of Beulah; Macaria; Vashti; St. Elmo; Inez, a Tale of the Alamo; Infelice; and At the Mercy of Tiberius.