Indian Wars Medal of Honor Recipient. As then Lieutenant Wilber Elliott Wilder, the future general was cited for rescuing a wounded comrade under heavy fire during the 1882 Battle of Horseshoe Canyon. The young officer's courage was to prove as habitual as it was extraordinary. Four years later in 1886 he rode alone into the Apache camp to negotiate Geronimo's surrender. A career soldier and a graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point, he was appointed Adjutant of his alma mater in 1895. He returned to the battlefield during the Spanish-American War, however, and in 1916 joined Pershing's expedition to Mexico to subdue the bandit Pancho Villa. Later, when the US entered WWI he served as a brigadier general in France. Born in Atlas, MI, his first wife and the mother of his children was Violet Blair Martin of the prominent Throop-Martin family of "Willowbrook", near Auburn, NY. Widowed in 1919, he survived his second and third wives as well. He resided at "The Elms," in Ridgefield, CT, until his death in 1952.
Indian Wars Medal of Honor Recipient. As then Lieutenant Wilber Elliott Wilder, the future general was cited for rescuing a wounded comrade under heavy fire during the 1882 Battle of Horseshoe Canyon. The young officer's courage was to prove as habitual as it was extraordinary. Four years later in 1886 he rode alone into the Apache camp to negotiate Geronimo's surrender. A career soldier and a graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point, he was appointed Adjutant of his alma mater in 1895. He returned to the battlefield during the Spanish-American War, however, and in 1916 joined Pershing's expedition to Mexico to subdue the bandit Pancho Villa. Later, when the US entered WWI he served as a brigadier general in France. Born in Atlas, MI, his first wife and the mother of his children was Violet Blair Martin of the prominent Throop-Martin family of "Willowbrook", near Auburn, NY. Widowed in 1919, he survived his second and third wives as well. He resided at "The Elms," in Ridgefield, CT, until his death in 1952.
Bio by: Nikita Barlow
Family Members
Siblings
Advertisement
