Forceythe Willson - Personal Life

Personal Life

Byron Forceythe Willson was born April 10, 1837 in Little Genesee, Allegany County, New York. He was the eldest son of Hiram and Ann Colvin (Ennis) Willson. Though his parents addressed him as "Byron," he developed a dislike for the name, and eventually dropped it during his early manhood. In 1846, his father loaded the family and their belongings on a raft and floated down the Allegany and Ohio Rivers to Maysville, Kentucky. A year later, the family moved again, this time to Covington, Kentucky, where they lived for six years, before removing to New Albany, Indiana. This would be the last move of Hiram Willson's life. He died in 1859, and was preceded in death by his wife in 1853.

Willson's father had been a Unitarian, and his mother was a Seventh Day Baptist, but Forceythe developed his own unique beliefs about spirituality. He believed that the living could communicate with the dead, and that he was a medium through which this could be accomplished. He claimed to have had a conversation with his late father some years after his death. He also maintained that he was clairvoyant, and was able to divine the contents of unopened letters, as well as some information about their authors, by placing the envelope to his forehead.

In 1863, Willson married Elizabeth Conwell Smith, a poet from New Albany, Indiana. She died the following year. From that time until his own death, many who were with him observed him having conversations with the spirit of his dead wife. Shortly following her death, he told a friend "It has left me neither afflicted nor bereaved... And strangest of yet all, the blessed Presence is at times so plain that I can scarcely believe the tender tie of her embodiment is broken."