Cape Palmas
Leighton Wilson was born in Sumter, S.C on March 25, 1809. He graduated from Union College, NY in 1829 and Columbia Theological Seminary in 1833. In the fall of 1833 he sailed to West Africa to identify for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (located in Boston) the best location for the Board’s first mission in West Africa. Cape Palmas, Liberia, was chosen for work among the Grebo people. Returning to the U.S. in 1834, he married Mary Elizabeth Bayard of Savannah, a daughter of a wealthy and aristocratic family. They sailed for Cape Palmas the fall of that year. During the next seven years they established schools for the Grebo, developed a Grebo alphabet, wrote the first Grebo dictionary and grammar, and translated into Grebo not only portions of the Bible but also school book sand hymns. These were printed by their African American missionary colleague B. V. R. James. The Wilsons freed their inherited slaves, provided for their transportation to Cape Palmas and helped them to become established in the African American settler community at the Cape.