I appreciate your sweep of demographics to ensure we don't overlook possibilities. Haw Creek Township is in west-central Morgan County in the direction of Benton County, which MAY put those Wilsons out of the picture. Jones Creek is east-central Morgan County toward Miller County. The center for the Morgan County guerrilla movement was mostly in Moreau Township which is east and northeast of Versailles, the county seat. If I read my map correctly Jones Creek is in Moreau Township, so the Wilsons you found there may have been connected with the ones who had guerrilla tendencies.

(Genealogists get frustrated with certain common anglo surnames like Wilson, Jones, Smith, Johnson, Brown, and the like, as some of you know all too well. People like us--yeah, me too, on my mother's side--are frankly envious of those of you with "distinctive" surnames, and hang our heads when you tell us about how fast you were able to connect your family to other lines. That's why researchers like John come in handy. If you are cursed with "common" English surnames in your lines, take heart, because there is a strong chance that your ancestors changed their name to the "common" one from the "distinctive" one to escape somebody or something way back there when people could still do such a thing. Ah yes, America, the land of opportunity!)

There is evidence that a large portion of Morgan County's population was supportive of the southern cause:
--During 1861 Union troops at the large Tipton base were convinced enough of that they raided Versailles, perhaps without orders.
--During summer 1862 when the mandatory Enrolled Missouri Militia (EMM) program began, Morgan County enrolled only enough men to form one company, Company K of the 43rd EMM. However, this company was aggressive enough that in spring 1864 when the moderate-controlled General Assembly group that controlled the EMM program fired officers throughout the state "for being too rough on rebels," (no kidding!), two of them were Company K officers.
--During early to middle October 1863 when all the Yanks in the region were trying to stop Shelby's raid roaring through central Missouri, the local guerrillas of the Morgan County area paid a leisurely visit to Versailles where they were feted and fed by a large crowd. I should add that the Versailles southerners were firm with the bushwhackers that they were not to harm certain well-known northern sympathizers of the place, and thereby probably saved some lives, considering the murders this same bunch committed in the town of Florence during this period.
--When MG Rosecrans initiated under his General Orders Number 107 (I list the number because you see that a lot in the writings of that time) the highly successful citizen guards program statewide, it appears Morgan County only had one company of citizen guards, also called "Provisional Company Enrolled Missouri Militia." However, this company under Captain A. J. Hart was aggressive. I would imagine that a bunch of the Company K, 43rd EMM guys went into this company.

--Lastly, speaking personally, some of my wife's southern ancestors moved there just after the Civil War from somewhere else in the state, so they must have figured nobody would bother them there.

I think that Morgan County having a large southern population also had something to do with their persistent guerrilla band operating off and on throughout the war. If folks wouldn't join them, at least most folks wouldn't inform on them either.

Bruce Nichols