Rachel Bird Wilson (1750–1786)
Rachel Bird was the first wife of James Wilson, whom Bushrod Washington would replace as a Supreme Court associate justice.
Rachel Bird was born on 22 January 1750 in Berks County, Pennsylvania. The daughter of a well-to-do ironmaster, she married James Wilson in 1771. Their six children included Bird Wilson. Bird died in Philadelphia on 14 April 1786, remembered in one obituary for her "exemplary exercise of the important duties of mother, wife, and friend."
Colonial Dames of America, Ancestral Records and Portraits: A Compilation from the Archives of Chapter I, the Colonial Dames of America (New York: The Grafton Press, 1910), Volume II, 650–52.
The National Cyclopedia of American Biography (New York: James T. White & Company, 1921), Volume II, 207.
Pennsylvania Packet (Philadelphia), 18 April 1786, page 3, column 1 (America’s Historical Newspapers).