Elmore County AlArchives Biographies.....Williams, Thomas August 11 1825 - living in 1893
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Ann Anderson alabammygrammy@aol.com May 20, 2004, 11:46 pm

Author: Brant & Fuller (1893)
   HON. THOMAS WILLIAMS, the most extensive planter of Elmore county, was born
in Greenville county, Va., August 11, 1825, the son of John Davis and Mary
(Johnson) Williams, born in Granville county, N. C., in 1800, and in Greenville
county, Va., in 1796, respectively. He was a Baptist minister, and in the course
of his ministry his work called him to Virginia, where he met and married the
companion of his life, and after several years of work in Petersburg and other
points in Virginia, in 1834, he settled at Wetumpka, where he remained in the
ministry until his death, in 1871. He is said to have been one of the ablest
divines of his denomination in central Alabama. He built more churches, married
more people and preached more funerals than any other minister before or after
him. He was a man of the highest type of integrity and honor, and was known and
loved by all men. He was thoroughly temperate and conservative on all subjects,
and had no fellowship with hypocrisy or sham. He was a splendid type of the
earnest, honest, christian exponents of the "humble man of Gallilee." He was the
son of Thomas and Anna (Davis) Williams. Thomas Williams was a sturdy Welshman,
who was killed in the war for American independence at King's mountain. Several
years after, his widow went from her home with a negro boy, in an ox cart,
disinterred the remains of her beloved soldier-husband and buried them beneath
the rose and lilac trees of her own garden. The mother of Hon. Thomas Williams
died at the advanced age of ninety-three, a pious Christian, a loving mother,
and a faithful wife. Hon. Thomas Williams is the eldest of three sons and three
daughters. He had but limited education. Up to his twenty-first year, his life
had been spent between the plow handles. After this, he did collecting for a
year or two, and thus earned sufficient money to defray his expenses through
East Tennessee university. He then read law, and at the age of twenty-seven
years he was admitted to the bar and practiced for twenty-two years with
phenomenal success. He was married August 20, 1852, to Rebecca E., daughter of
John C. Judkins, of Virginia. The following children were the result of the
union: Robert, William Yancey, Sampson H., Jennie D., wife of Peter A. Buyck;
Harry L., a lawyer; Thomas J., Mary Johnson and Sett Storrs, the last named two
dying in infancy. The home of Hon. Thomas Williams is two miles northeast of
Wetumpka, and is one of the most attractive and beautiful country seats in the
state. He has, beside this, about 12,000 acres of fine land in Elmore county, so
that he enjoys the ideal of an educated southern gentleman-broad acres and a
fine home. In 1891, the splendid place, with all its furniture, barns and
provisions were destroyed by fire, destroying many valuable articles that money
could not reproduce. Mr. Williams has been a justice of the peace and registrar
in chancery and prison inspector. In 1878, he was nominated in a hopelessly
republican district for the legislature, and, to the surprise of everybody, was
elected, and shortly thereafter he was elected to congress. He began his
congressional career in the extra session of the forty-sixth congress, and
served with ability and distinction. He served on the committees of public
lands, private claims, expenditures, etc. He and his family are Methodists, and
belong to one of the best families in the state.



Additional Comments:
from "Memorial Record of Alabama", Vol. I, p. 950-951
Published by
Brant & Fuller (1893)
Madison, WI

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