Wilson's parents gave him the nickname 'Tommy', which he used until he was 16. Wilson's parents gave him the nickname 'Tommy', which he used until he was 16. Before he was two, the family moved to Augusta, Georgia.Wilson's earliest memory was of playing in his yard and standing near the front gate of the Augusta parsonage at the age of three, when he heard a passerby announce in disgust that Abraham Lincoln had been elected and that a war was coming. By the time Wilson took office, New Jersey had gained a reputation for public corruption; the state was known as the 'Mother of Trusts' because it allowed companies like Standard Oil to escape the antitrust laws of other states.