My Genealogy Hound

John C. Williams, like many other prominent citizens of Lucas Township, is worthily occupied as a planter. He was born in Hardeman County Tenn., March 7, 1827, as the son of Nathan Williams, a native of Rockingham County, N. C, born in 1788. He was married in North Carolina, and immigrated to Alabama about 1822, and after residing there for about four years, moved to Western Tennessee, where he remained till 1834, the time of his location in Northern Mississippi: he was the first white man to take his family into that part of the State, and at the time the red man was frequently seen. He remained there till his death, in October, 1850, on the farm that he opened—the first in that section of the country. He was of Scotch-Irish descent, and the son of John Williams, who is supposed to have been born in Ireland. His wife was Miss Nancy L. Carr, of North Carolina origin, born in 1800, who died while visiting her son, John C, in Austin, Miss., in 1876. Mr. and Mrs. Williams were the parents of nine children, only two of whom are alive: John C. and a brother, Dr. W. G. (living in Texas). The subject of this sketch, the fifth child, was raised in Mississippi after he was seven years of age, receiving his education in the common schools of Benton County. In 1849 he was married in Mississippi to Miss Nancy Terry, who was born in South Carolina, in 1827, and died in Benton County, Miss., in 1856, being the mother of two children: Emma (deceased, the wife of Mr. Knight) and Louisa C. (wife of William Phillips, who lives on a farm in this county). Mr. Williams was married a second time in 1859, his wife being Sarah C. Jarrett, then the widow of a Mr. Knight. She was born in Petersburg, Va., in 1827, and had two sons by Mr. Knight; none were born of the last union. Mr. and Mrs. Williams have reared several children, among whom are her two children and his by his first wife, Sally and Lillie Bedus (daughters of his deceased sister), Lycurgus War (a relative of his present wife), two children, by the names of Jennie and Edward Rupe (children of his sister) and two grandchildren, Mary and Henry Knight, are now with him. All but three of the children that he has brought up are now married and doing well. Mr. Williams immigrated from De Soto County, Miss., in 1885, to where he now lives, having 1,600 acres of land, with 200 in cultivation, on which he raises from 100 to 150 bales of cotton annually. He enlisted in the Confederate army with the scout, Thomas Henderson, and served in this capacity from Mississippi to New Orleans, until he was paroled, June 19, 1865. Politically he has been a stanch Democrat, since casting his first vote, which was for James K. Polk. Mrs. Williams is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and her husband is a believer in Universalism. Mr. Williams is a good, moral man, and is not addicted to playing cards or any other gambling devices, and has not taken any intoxicating drinks for twelve years. He first went to Memphis in 1838, when that city was a village, and it has been his home market ever since.