Wilson (Butler) is born in Greensboro, Georgia.

The son of a doctor, Butler Wilson graduates from Atlanta University, and comes to Boston in 1881 to attend Boston University School of Law. He opens an office at 34 School Street, marries Mary Evans in 1894, and lives at 13 Rutland Square. A civic leader and board member of a number of community and charitable organizations, Butler becomes one of the first two African-American member of the American Bar Association in 1912,* the first secretary of the Boston Branch NAACP in 1912, and its first president (1916-1936). He dies in Boston on Oct. 31, 1939. In the 1960s, a safe under the kitchen floor in his former home is discovered containing letters from Frederick Douglass, Edward Everett, Hannibal Hamlin, Sarah Orne Jewett, Henry Cabot Lodge, Wendell Phillips, and John Greenleaf Whittier.