LIAS H. WILLIAMS was born at Ledyard, in the State long before the revolutionary war. In 1748, "when we lived under the King," his grandfather, William Williams, was a justice of the peace in Groton, and that he might well and intelligently discharge the duties of his office to meet the approval of his Sovereign Majesty, George II, he procured two volumes of "The Office and Authority of a Justice of the Peace," "by W. Nelson, of the Middle Temple, Esq., Savoy 1745." Inscribed on the fly leaf of each volume, is "Groton. William Williams, His Book Bought January, A. D., 1748 9 Both Volumes Cost £9 10., 0 Old Tenor or £5-2 44 lawfull money.” They are a pair of quaint old law books, and they were entrusted to me by Judge Williams with the injunction that I should deliver them to his friend Charles Aldrich, to be placed in the State Library. Vol. 1, p. 312, says: "My Lord Coke told us the laws against drunkenness were very new. "'Tis true he mentioned King Edgar, but look'd no farther back than to the statutes of King James; by which 'tis enacted, That any Justice of the Peace upon his own View, Confession of the party, or proof of one Witness upon Oath, may convict any Person for Drunkenness. "Being convicted, he is to pay 5s. for every Offense to the Church-wardens of the Parish. "If he is convicted the second time, then he may give Bond in 10 s. viz., Two Sureties, to be of the Good Behaviour, or be committed." Then follow all necessary forms to be used in prosecutions for drunkenness, after which the author adds: P. 315. These Acts of Parliament are so far from being duly executed, that, to the great Scandal and Corruption of this Nation, our greatest Men give a Sanction to this Vice, by drinking themselves into the Good-will of the Electors every new Parliament.” Judge Williams graduated at Yale College in the class of 1840, and was at once employed for a year as principal of the Goshen Academy, in Sullivan county, New Hampshire, and gave great satisfaction to the Trustees of the institution. Near the close of his engagement, the Trustee who went to New Haven to employ a principal, and who engaged the young graduate, asked him if he knew why he had selected him for the position. The professor answered that he had supposed some member of the faculty had given him a recommendation regarding his scholastic attainments. The Trustee replied that had nothing to do with it at all. That a lot of wild boys had destroyed the discipline of the Academy, and the former principal was compelled to leave on that account; that he left home determined to find some man that could control the students and restore good discipline. So he went to New Haven about commencement time, and happened to hear of a young man in the graduating class named Williams, who, a short time before had thrashed a policeman for what he considered an unwarranted interference with him. He thought that was the very man he was looking for, sought him out, made an engagement with him, and had never had occasion to regret his choice. At the end of his year in New Hampshire he went to South Carolina, near Columbia, at a salary of $500 a year, as tutor in a private school for the sons of wealthy planters preparing to enter Yale. His duties in this school required but part of his time and he began the study of law which he continued for five years, when the last sickness of his father caused his return to Ledyard. In 1846, soon after his father's death, he came to Iowa and settled at Garnavillo. Upon the breaking out of the Mexican war, he enlisted and was chosen Sergeant in Capt. Parker's regiment of dragoons, that was sent to garrison Fort Atkinson in Winneshiek County, Iowa, to relieve Capt. Sennet, who was ordered to Mexico. While stationed at this fort, one of the recruits was not disposed to submit kindly to the Sergeant's instruction in discipline, and challenged him to a private contest in a grove near by. The Sergeant waived his rank and they went together to the grove and entered into a desperate struggle, when Corporal Reed appeared upon the scene, arrested the belligerents and marched them to the guard house. This ended the contest, but the Sergeant's authority was not afterwards disputed. In February, 1848, at the end of the war, he returned to Garnavillo, and in addition to his law practice, opened up a farm on section 13, adjoining on the west the section in which Garnavillo is located. In 1849 he returned to his native State and was united in marriage to Hannah, daughter of Capt. Adam Larrabee, and sister of ex-Governor Larrabee, who survives him and resides on the Grand Meadow farm with their two sons, Fred. L. and Wilkes, and daughter Anna E. Their daughter Annie, wife of Eli N. Baily, resides at Sac City in this state. In 1851, under the new Code system of county government, he was elected the first County Judge of Clayton Co., He found the finances in a and held the office for two terms. very disordered condition, there being no money in the treasury, and "county warrants selling all the way from a drink of whiskey to fifty cents on the dollar; but at the close of his last term of office, you could present your county warrant to the treasurer and get one hundred cents on the dollar, every time." Allen E. Wanzer]. He became acquainted with all parts of the county by personal inspection, that he might provide for its public necessities. One day there entered the office of the county judge, an eccentric and illiterate man, and inquired if he was Judge Williams. On receiving an affirmative answer, the visitor handed out a certificate of his election, and said he had come to have the Judge qualify him for the office of Squire. The Judge in a very bland manner answered: "I can swear you in, sir, and if it is sufficient approve your bond; but I think nothing short of Almighty power can qualify you for the office." He administered the oath and approved his bond. During the latter part of his term, he sold his Garnavillo farm and purchased of the U. S. Government a tract of 2,200 acres of land in Grand Meadow, and employed his brother-inlaw, William Larrabee, to superintend the opening of a farm on his new purchase. The crops of wheat raised the first two years on the part brought under cultivation, being about 320 acres, paid the cost of raising, all the improvements made, and the price paid for the whole tract of land. His five years residence in South Carolina compelled him to become familiar with the institution of slavery, for which he conceived an intense, undying hatred, and “when the Missouri compromise was repealed, and the South had threatened to plant her slave colonies on free soil, he was among the first men of America to protest against the encroachment, and among the first to call together a body of men for the purpose of forming an organization against the demands of the slaveholders' power, and from that day stood by the organization." [Hist. of Clayton Co.] About the year 1856 he joined Geo. W. Whitman and others in building, at a cost of $30,000, a three run, steam, merchant flouring mill, known as the "Clayton City Mill,” which for many years, under the control of Frank Larrabee as managing partner, did an extensive and profitable business. In 1858, he was elected Judge of the Tenth Judicial District of Iowa, and re-elected in 1862. In the discharge of the duties of that office, he proved himself a profound jurist, an officer of unswerving integrity and gained a wide reputation as a scholar of high attainments. In 1870, he was appointed by Gov. Samuel Merrill to fill a vacancy on the bench of the Supreme Court of this State, and served only till his successor, elected at the next following election, had qualified. The published opinions written by him are models of clearness and brevity. He next turned his attention to promoting the construction of two lines of railway centering at Dubuque. One, on the right bank of the Mississippi river to St. Paul and Minneapolis; the other, up the Turkey river to Mankato, and in the same direction to intersect the Northern Pacific road near Fargo. The first was built and has proved a road of great importance. The value of what the other would have been is now, too late, better appreciated than it was then, and it was by others diverted from his plan and built up the Volga and terminates at West Union, a branch only 58 miles in length. From Fargo, via Mankato, Turkey river and Dubuque to Chicago, for directness and easy grades, is a line superior to any that has been built connecting those points. The line and the branch that were built have passed to the ownership of the C. M. & St. P. Ry. Co. He afterwards organized the Iowa Eastern Railway Company, for the purpose of constructing a narrow-gauge railroad from McGregor to Des Moines, and sixteen miles of it were completed when financial disaster overtook the Eastern capitalists who had undertaken to supply the necessary funds, and |