Shawnee County KS Archives Biographies.....Williams, Archibald F. 1869 - 
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Author: James L. King (1905)

HON. ARCHIBALD. F. WILLIAMS.

    HON. ARCHIBALD F. WILLIAMS, United States commissioner and a prominent
attorney-at-law of Topeka, was born at Topeka, October 11, 1869, and is a son of
Archibald L. and Elizabeth C. (Ferguson) Williams and a grandson of the late
Hon. Archibald Williams, who was the first United States District judge of Kansas.

    Judge Archibald Williams was born in 1801 at Mount Sterling, Kentucky. The
name is of Welsh extraction and the founder of the family in America came from
Wales and settled in Virginia, forming a part of the loyalist or cavalier party
known by the Puritans of New England as "Rake-hellies," which was a derisive
name applied to those who did not adopt their own austere belief and follow
their manner of living. Frequent mention may be found of these objectionable
people in the writings of Roger Williams, who, without doubt came from the same
parent stock in Wales. For many years the Williams family flourished in Virginia
where the name is still one well known, but prior to the birth of Judge Williams
his parents had migrated to Kentucky. A young law practitioner, Judge Williams
removed to Illinois in 1826, locating at Quincy, and he subsequently became an
intimate personal friend of Abraham Lincoln. Upon many occasions he represented
his county in the Legislature, and under the administration of President Taylor
served as United States attorney. When the Kansas-Nebraska troubles were
brewing, he was made a nominee for Congress on what was known as the
"Anti-Nebraska" or "Anti-Slavery" ticket, and at the organization of the
Republican party he was one of its sponsors.

    When Abraham Lincoln was elected President, one of his first appointments,
after his selection of his Cabinet, was that of Judge Williams as the first
United States District judge of Kansas, and in this connection it may be noted,
that Mr. Lincoln had offered a position of the Supreme Court bench of the United
States to his trusted friend. This great honor, which subsequently fell to Judge
David Davis, of Illinois, was declined by Judge Williams who modestly declared
himself not well enough equipped to accept so exalted a position. While this
opinion was not shared by his cotemporaries, his decision was accepted by the
President and he was sent to Kansas in a scarcely less honorable or onerous
position. Prior to his decease in 1863, he had returned to Quincy, where his
life closed.

    Archibald L. Williams, son of Judge Williams, located in Kansas in 1861, a
short time before his father came to the State, and entered upon the practice of
the law, a profession in which his eminence is only second to that of his
distinguished father. At different times he served as city and county attorney
and for four years he was acting United States attorney. In 1870 and again in
1872, he was elected by the Republican party, Attorney General of Kansas. For
years and from its beginning, he was consulting attorney for the old Kansas
Pacific Railroad Company at Topeka and continued in office with the different
railroad organizations which succeeded it. In 1887 he became general attorney
for the Union Pacific Railroad Company, in Kansas, a position requiring every
qualification of an able, experienced, tactful and judicious lawyer.

    While Mr. Williams' eminence in the profession is well known in all
departments of the law, his services to the State, in 1874, in curtailing the
fraudulent organizing of western counties, added credit to an administration of
the attorney generalship, which in every feature had been a credit to the State.
It was through his almost unaided efforts that the practice of organizing
western counties by fraud was broken up. A short time previously, the counties
of Barbour (since changed to Barber), Harper and Comanche had been organized,
and they had issued, between them, about $250,000 in bonds. This sum had, to put
it mildly, been unloaded partly on the State School Fund but more extensively on
unsuspecting Eastern investors. In the course of time this produced trouble and
a public investigation was demanded. The Legislature appointed an investigating
committee which was composed of one member from each House and the Attorney
General, Mr. Williams.

    The member of the Senate and the member of the House started out on a tour
of investigation as ordered, but certain ones who had reason to fear a searching
visit of the authorities had devised a scheme by which Justice should be turned
aside and they should go their way without molestation, Those were days when
Indian outrages were not uncommon and as the legislators were only human and had
families dependent upon them, they gave credence to the tales poured in their
ears of savage uprisings in the far western counties whither their duty led them
and prudently turned back. When this scheme was tried on Attorney General
Williams, the conspirators found they had to deal with a man of different
mettle. He made his way to the lands in question, visiting Barbour, Harper and
Comanche counties and returned alive and very willing to make a report. He found
that Barbour County had a few bona fide residents although not numerous enough
to legalize the organization of the county, but that Harper and Comanche
counties were not settled at all.

    The meaningless report submitted by the other members of the committee, from
hearsay, was supplemented by that of the Attorney General and it has been
preserved not only as a historic paper but as a contribution to humorous
literature. We submit an excerpt:

    "There is no population in Comanche County. If Marius sat amid the ruins of
Carthage and wept, I camped upon the town-site of Smallwood, the county-seat,
and feasted upon wild turkey, with no white man to molest or make me afraid. In
Smallwood there are two log cabins, both deserted, without doors, windows, sash
or blinds. About a mile off is a deserted ranch. These compose the houses of the
householders of the county. In this county there is not an acre of land or a
dollar's worth of property subject to taxation; its sole inhabitants are the
Cheyennes and the coyote, the wolf and the Arrapahoes, and its organization is
and always has been a fraud. Harper and Comanche counties were organized solely
for plunder. The vast amount of bonds issued has seriously injured our credit
abroad. To issue these bonds required wholesale perjury and forgery. When these
counties are properly attached to some other county for judicial purposes, the
thieves who issued these bonds should be attended to. The State, through its
Attorney General and the proper county attorneys, should put every engine of the
law in force; should pursue, capture, try, convict and lock up these rogues, so
that our credit may be restored and other incipient rascals of a like character,
quickened with a similar ambition, may be deterred from the crime through a fear
of a like fate."

    This vigorous protest had the effect desired and the whole credit rests with
Mr. Williams. He still continues in the practice of his profession and his name
still is, as it always has been, held in the highest honor.

    On August 28, 1862, Archibald L. Williams was married in Posey County,
Indiana, to Elizabeth (Cloud) Ferguson, and they have six children, all of whom
are residents of Topeka.

    Archibald F. Williams, our immediate subject, was educated in the common
schools of Topeka and at Washburn College, with three years instruction at a
military school at Boonville, Missouri. He then read law under his eminent
father and later took a course in the State University of Michigan at Ann Arbor,
graduating in 1892. Mr. Williams began to practice as an attorney of the Union
Pacific Railroad Company, later formed a law partnership with C. K. Holliday,
but since 1895 has been alone.

    Mr. Williams has always been an active member of the Republican party and
has been frequently honored by election to responsible offices. In 1903 he was
elected to the Legislature, a position he resigned in order to accept the one he
now fills, that of United States commissioner.

    Mr. Williams is a member of the Bar Association of the State of Kansas and
of the Commercial Club of Topeka and belongs also to the Elks.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

HISTORY OF SHAWNEE COUNTY, KANSAS
AND
REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

EDITED AND COMPILED BY
JAMES L. KING
TOPEKA, KANSAS 

"History is Philosophy Teaching by Examples"

PUBLISHED BY
RICHMOND & ARNOLD,
GEORGE RICHMOND; C. R. ARNOLD.
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS,
1905.

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