Carrillo, Charles M.

Francis Cushman Wilson was born in Winchester, Massachusetts on June 8, 1876. He was educated in the public schools in Winchester, and then entered Harvard as a member of the class of 1898. His studies at Harvard were interrupted in the middle of his senior year, when he volunteered with the army at the beginning of the Spanish American War. After the war, Wilson worked in the securities business in New York and Boston, and in 1900, moved to Washington D.C. to work for the Department of the Interior. While in Washington, he began studying law at the Columbian Law School, graduating with his LL.B. in 1903.

In 1907, Wilson came to Santa Fe as part of a team of federal officials investigating fraudulent mining patents on federal lands. Following the investigation, Federal Judge John R. McFie appointed Wilson clerk of the Federal District Court of the First District of the Territory of New Mexico. During his clerkship, Wilson formed a partnership with Judge Richard Hanna in a private law practice. The partnership lasted until 1912, when Hanna was selected for the Supreme Court.

Wilson's career included appointments to the Committee on Conservation and Administration of the Public Domain; River Commissioner of New Mexico (1927-1931); Secretary of the Colorado River Commission (1927-1932), member of the Rio Grande Compact Commission (1928-1932) and member of the National Chamber of Commerce's Committee on Interstate Compacts (1936). Declining health forced him to retire from active legal practice in 1942. Francis Cushman Wilson died in Santa Fe on January 17, 1952.

From the guide to the Charles M. Carrillo Collection of Francis C. Wilson Certificates, 1908-1930, (University of New Mexico. Center for Southwest Research.)