John A and Elizabeth Williamson
From the Biographical Cyclopedia of the Commonwealth of
Kentucky, published by the John M Gresman Company, Chicago-Philadelphia 1896
JOHN A WILLIAMSON, a retired steamboat captain and a man well and favorably known on the river between Cincinnati and New Orleans, and for many years a resident of Newport, was born in Portsmouth, Ohio June 9, 1826. He is the son of Samuel Williamson, a native of Norfolk, Virginia who moved to Charleston, Virginia where he married Mary Slack in 1808 and made his home there until 1825. He was one of the first men who discovered salt on the Kanawha in 1809 or 1810. He taught school for awhile, having received a good education. In 1825 he concluded to move west with his family and started down the river in a flatboat and when he reached Portsmouth, Ohio, he stopped near the mouth of the Scioto and remained there for four or five months.
During that time his son, John A, the subject of this sketch, was born. Then he moved across the river to a farm in Kentucky and followed farming until the spring of 1833, when he removed to Newport. This occurred, unfortunately, during the cholera plague, which was fatal to so many in 1833, and of which disease he died soon after his arrival at Newport, being forty-eight years of age. His wife was a native of Pennsylvania and died in Newport in 1879, aged eighty-nine years.
Captain John A Williamson has lived in Newport since 1833, and his education was limited to a few months in private schools. At the age of fifteen years he went to work on a steamboat that ran from Cincinnati to New Orleans, and became a pilot before he was eighteen years of age. In 1852 he attended as a delegate the Louisville convention that drafted the law known as steamboat inspection law, which required every pilot and engineer to have a license. He soon acquired an interest in a line of boats and continued on the river until 1870 and held a large interest in this line until 1882. From 1870 to 1876 Captain Williamson operated a full line of boats between Cincinnati and St Louis and at the same time owned and managed a boat store.
In 1871 he bought the street railway at Newport and operated it successfully until 1891 when he sold out. He owned the Newport ferry from 1866 to 1874. In 1884 he conceived the idea of building the Central railroad bridge across the Ohio river between Newport and Cincinnati and organized a company to build and operate the bridge, which was completed August 29, 1891. In was incorporated under the name of the Central Railway and Bridge Company, of which he has been the president since its inception. It was chartered by Kentucky as the Central Railway and Bridge Company and by the state of Ohio as the Central Bridge Company.
For fourteen years Captain Williamson was
president of the Newport Light Company, and has been for many years identified
with the business interests and material growth of Newport and he is one of her
best and most enterprising citizens. In 1848 he was married to Elizabeth
Kirby in Cincinnati and they have one son living, Lawrence Williamson. The
house in which Captain Williamson lives has been his home since February 22,
1850.
Captain John A Williamson 1898 Obituary
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Cincinnati Enquirer, 23 July 1898, page 7
NEWPORT
In the County Court yesterday, the will of Captain John Allen Williamson, was left for probate. The estate is divided between his son, grandson and wife. To his son, Lawrence, he leaves $20.000 worth of bonds of the Central Railway and Bridge Company. $9,000 of the capital stock of the National Flag Company. $200.000 in stock of the Central Railway and Bridge Company and $28,000 of the capital stock of the Cincinnati, Newport and Covington Street Railway Company.
His grandson, John William Kirk, receives the same amount of securities in the above companies as is bequeathed to his son. The family residence on East Fifth street, together with the residue of the estate, goes to he wife, Elizabeth Williamson, who is named as executrix without bond. She is instructed to hold, manage, sell and dispose of her part as she sees fit.
Whatever remains at her death is to be equally divided between his son and grandson. The will bears the date of June 8,1898, and is witnessed by R W Nelson and L R Hawthorne.