Chatham County GaArchives Biographies.....Williamson, William Wayne 1854 - living in 1913 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 October 15, 2004, 12:32 am Author: William Harden p. 659-662 MAJ. WILLIAM WAYNE WILLIAMSON is a scion of one of Georgia's oldest families. He was born in the city of Savannah, September 1, 1854, the son of John and Julia C. (Wayne) Williamson. His father, Judge Williamson, was born in Savannah, February 3, 1810. He was a merchant, cotton factor and rice planter for a long number of years and a citizen of well-deserved prominence. Although engaged for the greater part of his life strictly in commercial affairs, he was universally known as Judge Williamson for the reason that he was justice of the superior court of Chatham county before and during the war. He was also a member of and chairman of the Savannah city council at the time Sherman's army came into the city and during the entire period of the Civil war his most active efforts were given to the carrying out of measures of beneficence for his city and the cause of the Confederacy in general. He resigned from the city council to accept the position of city treasurer in 1866. In 1872 he was elected county treasurer, which position he held until his demise. He was a member of the first board of public education in Savannah, organized soon after the war, and at the time of his death was its treasurer and the only surviving member of the original board. At the time of his death he was the oldest living member of the Georgia Hussars. For a number of years he was warden and vestryman of Christ church; he was a member of the Union Society and of the Georgia Historical Society. After the war, having become too aged to enter active business life again, the mayor and aldermen honored him by electing him to the office of city treasurer, as before noted. He was re-elected to the office by the people, and served efficiently in such capacity for several years, his ability and public spirit being of the highest character. He died in 1885, while county treasurer, but although a quarter century has elapsed since he passed to the Great Beyond, his memory remains green with the older-generation. Major Williamson's grandfather, John Postell Williamson, was one of the wealthiest real estate owners and planters of Savannah in the first half of the last century. He was born in South Carolina, but made Savannah his home early in life. The Williamson family is of English origin, having been established in South Carolina, as early as 1690. John Postell Williamson's home in Savannah was the rendezvous for army officers following the Mexican war and the Indian wars in Florida— Sherman, Pope, Bragg, Ridgeley, Wade, Beckwith and Rankin being among the representatives of the government who received hospitality there. The old home of the Williamson family was at the northwest corner of Montgomery and State streets, which at that time was the fashionable residential section of the city. John Postell Williamson also owned Brampton and much other real property in and about the city He operated a brick yard among other industries and is said to have built the old county court house. The mother of the immediate subject of this review Julia C. Wayne, was born in Savannah in 1822 and died in 1892. She was the daughter of Gen. William C. Wayne and Ann (Gordon) Wayne and the granddaughter of Richard Wayne of England, who came to America in 1760. He married September 14, 1769, in South Carolina, Elizabeth Clifford, whose family were among the first settlers of that province and who were allied to the families of DeSaussure and Bacots. When the Revolutionary war broke out, Richard Wayne, who was designated by an act of the South Carolina legislature as a "leading merchant" of Charlestown, headed a petition to be armed on the side of the Crown, and in consequence his property was confiscated and he was banished from the colony. All of this, with the subsequent restoration of his property, is fully recorded in the reports of the Acts of the South Carolina Assembly. Richard Wayne, however, never returned to South Carolina to live. On being banished he came with his wife and children to Savannah about 1782 and became a successful planter. Gen. Anthony Wayne was one of the executors of his will. Among the men of eminent ability of this family may be mentioned his son, Hon. James Moore Wayne, who was mayor of Savannah, judge of the superior court in this city, congressman from his district and finally associate justice of the United States supreme court. Another son was Gen. William Clifford Wayne, and one of his grandsons was Dr. Richard W. Wayne, who was at one time mayor of Savannah. Major Williamson was reared in Savannah and received his education in the public schools, in Professor McLellan's private school and in Eastman's Business College of Poughkeepsie, New York. He began active business life in 1879 in the office of Wilder & Company, with which firm he remained as confidential clerk until the death of Mr. Wilder in 1900. Major Williamson then succeeded to the firm and taking Mr. J. J. Rauers as partner, established the present house of Williamson & Rauers, steamship and forwarding agents. This concern has a world-wide reputation as steamship agents. Major Williamson has unusual business and executive gifts of which the success of the firm is the logical outcome. Major Williamson went through the public schools of Savannah; later took a course at Eastman's Commercial College at Poughkeepsie, New York, and then a mere youth, entered business with the firm of J. H. Gardner & Company, ship agents. He then went with the cotton firm of Andrew Low & Company (now out of existence), and after two years was sent by the firm, first to New Orleans and then to Galveston, Texas. He returned to Savannah in 1879, a young man of twenty-five, and was made confidential clerk of the firm of Wilder & Company. In the second year of service with that firm he was given power of attorney and put in charge of their freight business, in which position he remained until 1901. His entire service with that firm covered a period of twenty-two years. When Mr. Wilder died in 1901, Mr. Williamson associated himself with Mr. J. J. Rauers, under the style of Williamson & Rauers, and took over its business of Wilder & Company, which the firm of Williamson & Rauers have continued to successfully prosecute up to the present. This firm represents the North German Lloyd, the Hansa line (a German company) and other steamship companies. During all these years of steady-going business Mr. Williamson has been active in many directions and has been making character among his fellow-citizens. He has given an enormous amount of time to the public service and to the welfare of his native city, without any other compensation than that of the satisfaction which comes to the man who tries to serve his fellow-men. In 1895-96 he was president of the Cotton Exchange; and served again in that capacity in 1902-03. He is vice-president of the National Bank of Savannah; president of the Commercial Life Insurance Company, and for five years, from 1906 to 1910, inclusive, was president of the Chamber of Commerce. In the spring of 1907, while president of the Chamber of Commerce, Major Williamson, in company with Gov. Hoke Smith and G. Gunby Jordan, president of the Georgia Irrigation Association, visited Europe, and their efforts were successful in procuring the establishment of direct steamship communication with the Port of Savannah, so that the state received in 1907 the first cargo of selected immigrants arriving in Georgia since colonial days. Major Williamson's service to the state military covers a period of thirty-two years. In 1872 he joined the Savannah Volunteer Guards, organized in 1802. He joined as a private and held every office from private to captain. Finally in 1901, he advanced to the rank of major, which position he held until 1904, when he retired from active service. Certainly he had given a full measure of service. During his military service he was largely responsible for the establishment of Georgia's reputation in the rifle contests. Beginning in 1895, he was appointed by the Governor, captain of the state rifle team to represent the state at the annual rifle matches at Sea Girt, New Jersey. Major Williamson captained the team for five years. They came into competition with state teams from Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maine, the District of Columbia, and other localities. From its first visit to Sea Girt the Georgia team steadily worked its way forward until 1897, when out of five team matches and twelve individual matches, the Georgia men won every one, except one individual match. The things before mentioned have been merely a part of his immense activities in a public way. He has been, or is, a director in the Cotton Press Association, the Cotton Exchange, Tow Boat Company, Henderson-Hull Buggy Company, Young Men's Christian Association, a curator in the Georgia Historical Society, vestryman in St. John's Episcopal church, a commissioner of pilotage, a vice-president (for Georgia) of the National Rivers and Harbors Congress. As chairman of a committee composed of delegates from the Chamber of Commerce, Board of Trade, Cotton Exchange and Board of Aldermen, on several occasions, Major Williamson appeared before the Rivers and Harbors Committee of Congress, and secured for the city of Savannah large appropriations for the improvement of its harbor. The committee was in each case successful, and Savannah has in the last twenty-five years grown from a shallow-water port, with a depth of twelve feet, to a deep-sea port, which can accommodate vessels of twenty-seven foot draught. Major Williamson was also one of the active promoters of the automobile races of Savannah, which draw multiplied thousands of people to that city at their annual meets. In social life he is identified with the Oglethorpe Club, the Savannah Yacht Club, the Golf Club, the Savannah Volunteer Guards' Club, and the Cotillion Club, of which last named he has been chairman of the board since its organization. Politically, he is identified with the Democratic party, and in 1913 was elected alderman. Major Williamson was married in 1904 to Miss Corinne Heyward, daughter of Robert and Mary Elizabeth (Stoney) Heyward. After the birth of two children, Mrs. Williamson passed away, leaving a surviving infant, William Wayne Williamson, Junior, and Major Williamson has since remained a widower. His preferred reading has been along historical lines, and it is a notable fact that every student of public men comes to be impressed with the fact that those men who are students of history show a larger measure of public spirit than those who are not interested in that direction. A knowledge of history seems to be one of the contributing factors in good citizenship; and when with this knowledge of history is combined a good ancestry, one can, in nearly every case, forecast what attitude the men possessing these qualifications will occupy upon public questions. Additional Comments: From: A HISTORY OF SAVANNAH AND SOUTH GEORGIA BY WILLIAM HARDEN VOLUME I ILLUSTRATED THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY CHICAGO AND NEW YORK 1913 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/chatham/bios/gbs203williams.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/gafiles/ File size: 11.7 Kb