Northumberland County PA Archives Biographies.....Williams, John L. 1840 - living in 1899

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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com July 4, 2005, 9:45 pm



Author: Biographical Publishing Co.



JOHN L. WILLIAMS, who is well known among mine operators as a thoroughly

equipped and very successful superintendent of coal mining, is one of Mount

Carmel's most progressive and prominent citizens. He is a son of Thomas L. and

Sarah (Lloyd) Williams, and was born May 4, 1840, in the County of Denbigh,

North Wales.



  Our subject naturally took to mining, as his father was a miner. The father,

Thomas Williams, was born in Wales about 1820, and immigrated to this country in

1871. He had followed mining since the early age of something over eight years.

He located in Shenandoah, Schuylkill County, where he followed mining in all its

branches until about 1895. He had had experience in Wales as an assistant

foreman and in this region he served several years as fire-boss. To him and his

wife were born three sons: John L.; Thomas L., who was an outside-foreman for

the Reading Company at the Maple Hill Colliery, where he died in 1896; and

Daniel, who resides in Mount Carmel and is assistant outside-foreman of the

Richards Colliery, and has followed mining all his life.



  John L. Williams attended the common schools in and near his birthplace until,

at the age of thirteen years, he entered the employ of the Great Western

Railway, for which he worked four and a half years. Then, at the age of

seventeen years, he took a position as a fireman with a coal company, with the

intention of becoming a mechanic and engineer. He remained in the company's

employ about ten years, working as a fireman, engineer, inspector of pumps and

in various other positions, obtaining a complete knowledge of mining and mining

machinery, which served him well in his subsequent career in the mining region

of this state. Mr. Williams came to the United States in December, 1869,

locating at Shenandoah, a stranger, with willingness to work and thorough

knowledge of mines and machinery as his only capital. At that time work in the

mines was suspended and positions were scarce. Our subject obtained employment,

however, sinking the Indian Ridge shaft at Shenandoah and putting in all the

pumps. When the mine was opened and operations began he was made assistant

inside-foreman, which position he held for three years, when he was promoted to

foreman, the mine having been absorbed by the Reading Company, remaining foreman

until 1880. In that year Mr. Williams was appointed superintendent of the

Shenandoah district, comprising six collieries, serving as such for three years,

when he was again promoted and made superintendent of all the collieries owned

by the Reading Company north of Broad Mountain and from Trevorton to Mahanoy

City. He visited the collieries and carefully inspected them and the manner in

which they were worked, making reports which were declared complete in essential

details and very satisfactory. At the end of a year the district was divided

into two divisions, the Shamokin and the Shenandoah, and our subject was

appointed superintendent of the latter division, extending from Girardville to

Mahanoy City and including 24 collieries. He remained superintendent of that

division until 1892, when he resigned from the service of the Reading Company

and, removing to Mount Carmel, became superintendent for the Union Coal Company

on May 1, 1892, and is now with that company. He has the supervision of four

collieries, the Hickory Ridge, Hickory Swamp of Shamokin, Pa., and the

Pennsylvania and Richards at Mount Carmel. These collieries give employment to

4,000 men and boys, and their supervision is a task which only a well-equipped

and unusually capable man, such as Mr. Williams, could successfully undertake.

Our subject has been very successful and is regarded as an expert in coal

mining. He has won success by his ability and because he possesses in great

degree the perseverance which makes men successful.



  In July, 1866, Mr. Williams was united in marriage with Sarah E. Edwards, and

to them have been born the following children: Thomas H., who for some time was

an assistant to his father and is unusually capable as a business man, and has

served as president of the council in Mount Carmel; John, a miner, who resides

in Mount Carmel; Jennie, wife of Thomas Sanger of Mount Carmel, a draughtsman

for the Mount Carmel Iron Company and a graduate of Girard College,

Philadelphia; Harry L., a mechanic by occupation; and Edwin S., also a mechanic,

who began at the bottom by serving a full apprenticeship. In politics Mr.

Williams is a Republican. We take pleasure in announcing that his portrait is

shown on a preceding page.





Additional Comments:

Extracted from:



Book of Biographies of the Seventeenth Congressional District

Published by 

Biographical Publishing Company of Chicago, Ill. and Buffalo, NY (1899)





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