Bio of WILLIAMS, Joshua (b.1843 d.1896), Hennepin Co., MN
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EXTRACTED FROM: History of Minneapolis, Gateway to the Northwest; 
Chicago-Minneapolis, The S J Clarke Publishing Co, 1923; Edited by: Rev. 
Marion Daniel Shutter, D.D., LL.D.; Volume I - Shutter (Historical); 
volume II - Biographical; volume III - Biographical

Vol III, pg 310-314
JOSHUA WILLIAMS
Joshua Williams, long a well known hardware merchant of Minneapolis, was called
to the home beyond on the 4th of August, 1896, when fifty-three years of age.
His birth occurred on the Williams farm, five miles from Newville, in Cumberland
county, Pennsylvania, on the 5th of April, 1843, his parents being Louis Hudson
and Tabitha (McKeehan) Williams. His grandfather, Rev. Joshua Williams, D. D.,
served as pastor of the Big Spring Presbyterian church of Newville,
Pennsylvania, for twenty-nine years. In fact, all of his ancestors were sincere
churchmen who labored effectively for the moral and spiritual development of the
communities in which they resided. About the year 1856 Captain Louis Hudson
Williams journeyed westward with his family, with Minneapolis as his
destination, traveling by train to Pittsburgh, down the Ohio river to St. Louis,
up the Mississippi river to La Crosse, from there by rail on what is now the
Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway to St. Paul and overland by team to
Minneapolis. The family purchased a home on what is now Second avenue North,
near First street, the site which is now occupied by the Williams Hardware
Company. Louis H. Williams was one of the eight per­sons who composed the
Westminster Presbyterian church of Minneapolis, as origi­nally organized on the
23d of August, 1857. His wife, who also became identified with the church at its
inception, was one of its most active and helpful members. She died in Newville,
Pennsylvania, July 6, 1866, having been called east by her parent's illness, and
was buried among her ancestors in the old churchyard there. At the service on
the 14th of March, 1858, Louis H. Williams, who had served as a ruling elder in
churches in Mifflintown, Carlisle and Dickinson, in Pennsylvania, was elected
and enrolled a ruling elder of the Westminster Presbyterian church of
Min­neapolis. He died at the residence of his daughter, Mrs. Frederick Chalmers,
in this city, on September 18, 1889, honored and beloved by all who knew him. He
was recognized as the father of Old School Presbyterianism in Minneapolis.
Joshua Williams obtained his early education in the public schools of Newville,
Pennsylvania, and afterward entered the academy. He was a lad of thirteen years
when he accompanied his parents to Minneapolis. After working for a short time
in a grocery store owned by his father, he secured employment in the hardware
estab­lishment conducted by C. H. Pettit, who had opened a small retail store in
this city in 1861. The business was conducted on Bridge Square for thirty-five
years. Mr. Pettit was succeeded in 1866 or 1867 by Chalmers & Williams, which
firm name was maintained until 1887, when Joshua Williams became sole
proprietor. Review­ing his father's life, Charles R. Williams wrote as follows:
"When father took con­trol he was handicapped by lack of capital and by rather
unfavorable conditions in the retail hardware business. He was a man of nervous
temperament and unusual energy, and for twenty years did not take any vacation.
The hard times of 1893-94 capped the climax, and as a direct result of those
strenuous days his health broke down, and on August 4, 1896, he died, leaving
behind him little of this world's goods but a reputation for honesty and fair
dealing that was far above the ordinary. My brother and I owe our success in
large part to this, and without such a foundation we could not have continued
the business." The scope of the enterprise was broad­ened to include the jobbing
and wholesale trade in heavy hardware. The wholesale business soon superseded
the retail establishment and under the name of the Williams Hardware Company the
business has been continued to the present time.
At his demise Joshua Williams left a widow and four children, two sons and two
daughters, namely: Louis H. and Charles R., who are at the head of the Williams
Hardware Company; Alice; and Rachel. The funeral services of Joshua Williams
were conducted from his residence-No. 104 East Sixteenth street-by the Rev.
Frank W. Sneed, assisted by Rev. A. W. Benson. Mr. Williams joined the
West­minster Presbyterian church in 1863 and maintained his membership therein
until 1881, when he became connected with the First Presbyterian church. After
serving for many years as secretary of the Sabbath school of the Westminster
Presbyterian church he succeeded Judge Vanderburgh as superintendent, in which
capacity he remained for four years, from 1871 until 1875, and for a second term
of one year from 1878 to 1879. One who knew him intimately said of him: "He
inherited from his father, Elder Louis H. Williams, a strong and unwavering
devotion to the truth and the right. He made a good superintendent. It always
seemed to me that the term 'Old Faithful' could be applied to him, for he was
faithful to the discharge of every duty laid upon him." The following
resolutions were adopted by the session of the First Presbyterian church after
the death of Mr. Williams: "Although not an original member of our church, Elder
Joshua Williams came to it in its early history, when the struggle for existence
was pressing hard upon us. In the vigor of early manhood, at that time, his
earnestness and hopefulness were so manifest as to inspire others with new zeal
and to him, very largely, was due the success of the enterprise. Born a
Presbyterian, his loyalty to the church of his fathers was marked in an emi­nent
degree, and wherever he went, at home or abroad, in our church courts, in his
home, among his business associates, he was ever the stalwart defender of
Calvinistic theology, pure and simple. Like Timothy, from a child he had known
the Holy Scriptures, and the Bible was nothing less than the word of the living
God and as such he fed upon it with relish. 'Thus saith the Lord,' was to him
the end of con­troversy. The house of God was to him a sacred place, where he
was invariably found worshiping, as we believe, in spirit and in truth. The
place of prayer was also very dear to him and his voice was often heard there in
prayer and exhortation and always to edification and now we record not only our
high estimate of his worth, but our sense of the loss the church has sustained
in his death."
In conclusion it will not be amiss to record something more of the history of
the Williams Hardware Company, now conducted by Louis H. and Charles R.
Williams, sons of Joshua Williams. A few weeks before their father's death they
incor­porated the business under the name of the Williams Hardware Company, and
in the winter following they moved from No. 102 Hennepin to Nos. 110 and 112
Second avenue North, and a few years later to their present quarters. It is an
interesting fact that this location on Second avenue North was on the spot where
Louis Hudson Williams first lived when he came to Minneapolis in 1856. Up to the
year 1896 the nature of the business was general retail hardware, with iron and
steel, wagon wood-stock and blacksmiths' supplies as the leading specialties. L.
H. Williams had gone into the store upon graduating from high school in 1891. He
kept the books and took occasional trips out into the country, covering the
Northern Pacific line from Minneapolis to Wadena, down to Fergus Fa\\s and back
over the Great Northern. These trips were made at irregular intervals until the
summer of 1893, when Charles R. Williams graduated from high school and
immediately took up the road work, at first covering the same territory which
had been covered by his brother, and gradu­ally extending it until he had a trip
requiring ten or twelve weeks' time. They then increased their selling force
until, in 1901, when Charles R. Williams left the road, they had two other
salesmen out all of the time. In 1923 they have twenty-five traveling salesmen
covering the entire Northwest. When they began business the automobile had not
become the universal mode of conveyance and their line was composed of what is
known as heavy hardware consisting of iron and steel, carriage and .wagonmakers'
supplies, horeshoers' and blacksmiths' equipment, but as the horse has been
replaced by the automobile this firm added a comprehensive line of auto­mobile
supplies and garage equipment, which is equal to any in the Northwest. The house
has ever maintained the highest standards in the line of goods carried, in its
personnel and in the treatment accorded patrons. Throughout the four-story
struc­ture and the several auxiliary buildings the visitor is impressed with
constant evi­dences of the "pull-together" spirit which characterizes Williams'
transactions. Every one of the more than one hundred employes is striving to
please the patrons, to maintain the supremacy of Williams' service and to make
Minneapolis grow. Under the leadership of Louis H. and Charles R. Williams, this
spirit has been fostered until the name that stood for satisfactory service
during the days when Minneapolis was a very small village, today continues this
leadership on sheer merit. It has been directly due to their foresighted
management that the business zone of the company has been extended until it
reaches into every thriving community between the Great lakes and the Rocky
mountains.