[92] In 1876 Mr. Weise gave the following account: "Among the well known citizens of Troy in 1812, was Samuel Wilson. Being one of the first settlers, and besides having a kind and benevolent disposition, he won the esteem and affection of everybody in the village, and was more generally designated as Uncle Sam than by his proper name. It is related that on one occasion his youngest son wandered away from home and was lost. A gentleman found him crying in a strange place, and asked him whose boy he was, and received for an answer, that he was Uncle Sam's boy. By this appellation the father was readily recognized and he was returned to his parents. During the military operations along the northern border in the war of 1812, Samuel and Ebenezer Wilson were engaged in an extensive slaughtering business, employing about one hundred men, and were slaughtering weekly more than one thousand head of cattle. During this year, he and his brother received a contract from Elbert Anderson, Jr., an army contractor, to supply the troops stationed at Greenbush with beef, 'packed in full bound barrels of white oak.' Samuel Wilson was also appointed at this time Inspector of beef for the army, and was accustomed in this line of duty to mark all the barrels of meat passing his inspection with the abbreviated title U. S. of the United States. In the army at the cantonment at Greenbush, there were a number of soldiers who had enlisted in Troy, and to whom 'Uncle Sam' and his business were well known. The beef received from Troy, they always alluded to as Uncle Sam's beef, and the other soldiers without any inquiry began to recognize the letters U. S. as the initial designation of Uncle Sam. A contractor from the northern lines strengthened this impression thereafter, when, purchasing a large quantity of beef in Troy, he advertised that he had received a supply of Uncle Sam's beef of a superior quality. The name 'Uncle Sam,' a few only knowing its derivation, became in a little while the recognized familiar designation of the United States, and is now as well known to the world as is the appellation John Bull" (History of the City of Troy, p. 91).