Willson was born on a farm near
Princeton,
Canada West, on March 14, 1860, and went to school in
Hamilton, Ontario. By the age of 21, he had designed and patented the first electric
arc lamps used in Hamilton. He moved to the
United States in search of opportunities to sell his ideas. In 1892, Willson discovered an economically efficient process for creating
calcium carbide, which is used in the production of
acetylene gas. In 1895, he sold his patent to
Union Carbide. In the same year, Willson married Mary Parks in California and moved back to Canada. He built a house for his mother in
Woodstock, Ontario in 1895. During 1900 and 1901, he moved to
Ottawa and opened carbide plants both in Ontario (
Merritton and Ottawa) and Quebec (
Shawinigan). In 1911, he founded the
International Marine Signal Company to manufacture marine
buoys and
lighthouse beacons. Willson was the first person to own an automobile in Ottawa. In 1907, Willson built a summer house on
Meech Lake in what is now
Gatineau Park. The house is now owned by the federal government and notable for being the site of negotiations on the
Meech Lake Accord. In 1911, he began experimenting with the condensation of
phosphoric acid in the manufacture of
fertilizers at a mill on Meech Creek within the park. Due to this venture and running out of capital, he missed one interest payment and lost nearly all of his estate to his creditor, American tobacco king
James Buchanan Duke. The Meech Lake estate was then sold to
Arthur Vining Davis who would go on to further Willson's enterprising effort by establishing the Quebec aluminum industry at
Arvida, the name of the town being a portmanteau of his own name. Willson died of a
heart attack in
New York City on December 20, 1915, while trying to raise funds for a
hydroelectric project in
Labrador. His dream was finally realized in 1974 as the
Churchill Falls project. His name was given to an island on the Saguenay river, near the Shipshaw powerhouse. ==References==