William Wilsey was born on April 20, 1844, in Woodstock, Michigan, to Jeremiah Wilsey and Betsey Sanders. His father was a farmer who owned $4,000 of real estate and $600 of personal property. Wilsey grew up and attended school in Woodstock, and by 1870, he was working as a farmer. According to a local writer, his “course as a farmer has been characterized by skill and thoroughness, and the consequence is he has one of the most valuable and fertile tracts of land in the country.”
Wilsey supported the Republican Party, and he cast his first vote for President Ulysses S. Grant in 1868. He apparently never married. By 1900, he was living with his sister Eliza in Woodstock. He died of arteriosclerosis in Woodstock on February 15, 1927.