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HENRY W. WILLIAMS.
HENRY W. WILLIAMS, of Iola, one of Iola's early Police Judges and for some years a grain and coal dealer in the city, came into Kansas in 1878 and settled on the frontier in Pawnee county. He migrated there from Cumberland county, Illinois, where he was born February 1, 1833. He passed his boyhood in Coles and his youth in Cumberland county and was a son of Harry Williams who went into Illinois in 1830 and settled in Coles county. The latter was born in Bradford county, Pennsylvania, in 1809. and left the state three years later with his father, Zaben Williams, to Elizabethtown, Kentucky, Hardin county, and was reared there almost to manhood. In 1828 he crossed the Ohio river and invaded Crawford county, Indiana, where he married Lucretia Beals and, soon after moved over into Coles county, Illinois. Lucretia was a daughter of David Beals and Philiney Hayes, a niece of ex-President Hayes,
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for her father, Oliver Hayes, was the President's uncle. The Beals were from near Saratoga, New York, from which point they settled first in the Miami country above Cincinnati and afterward in Crawford county, Indiana.
Zaben Williams was born and reared at Williamstown, Massachusetts, and was a son of one of the founders of the town and a nephew of the other. These brothers were men of affluence and their generosity prompted them to found and endow the college at Williamstown. Zaben Williams' three children were: Harris, Constant and Harry, whose forefathers were patriots in the American Revolution, in the person of the founders of Williamstown College, both of whom died in the service.
Harry Williams' children were: Mary J., who married Josiah Goodwin, of Cumberland county, Illinois; Henry W.; David B., of Sullivan county, Missouri; Lucy E., deceased, wife of W. J. Vinson, of Cumberland county, Illinois; Jesse M., of the same county; Larinda C., wife of J. T. Jones, of Coles county, Illinois, and William F. Williams, of Cumberland county, Illinois.
Our subject spent his early life on his father's farm. He went to school three months in the year and at the age of seventeen bargained with his father for his time. He made and handled saw-logs and rails and from this he dropped into farming. He was married in October, 1850, to Nancy J. Stone who died October 10, 1865, leaving: Frances, wife of William J. Newman, of Mattoon, Illinois; Lewis B. Williams, of Allen county, and Chauncey L. Williams, of Coles county, Illinois. In 1866 he was married to Amanda F. Kelley, who died in Iola July 17, 1899. Her children are: Orville K., one of Allen county's successful teachers; Oscar L.; Charles; Mary E., wife of W. Rutledge; Amanda L., wife of Oscar L. Cowan; Harry, Olive and Fred Williams are with their father. January 21, 1900, Mr. Williams married Mattie Dailey, a daughter of Amos Dailey, one of Iola's early settlers.
In western Kansas Mr. Williams was engaged in both carpenter work and farming. He resided in Pawnee Rock and later in Larned and from that city he came to Iola in 1888. He purchased a half block in the first ward of Iola which he has improved by covering it with residences and has thereby contributed his part in the city's development. In the spring of 1900 he went out of active business and is concerned now only with the proper rearing and education of his younger children.
In political training the early Williams were Whigs. Upon the dissolution of that party they became "Know Nothing" and when the Republican party was christened they joined it and helped swell Fremont's popular vote. Our subject's first vote was cast for that candidate for the Presidency and he has never missed an election in all these forty-four years. He has great faith today in the ability of that party to do things and to conduct the affairs of our country with wisdom and prudence and to lead our citizens along a high plane of morality, patriotism and civilization.
Mr. Williams enlisted at Benton Barracks, St. Louis, October 1861, for three years and his regiment was McClelland's advance guard along the
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Potomac river in 1861 and 1862. He was discharged at Cumberland, Maryland, for disability and returned to Illinois, and in February, 1865, joined the One Hundred and Twenty-third Illinois and was transferred to Sixty-first Illinois, from which he was discharged October 19, 1865. He was detailed on duty to turn over deserters to the army, who returned under the President's proclamation, during the end of his second enlistment and the close of the war found him so engaged.
Pages 396-398, transcribed by Carolyn Ward from History of Allen and Woodson Counties, Kansas: embellished with portraits of well known people of these counties, with biographies of our representative citizens, cuts of public buildings and a map of each county / Edited and Compiled by L. Wallace Duncan and Chas. F. Scott. Iola Registers, Printers and Binders, Iola, Kan.: 1901; 894 p., [36] leaves of plates: ill., ports.; includes index.