My Genealogy Hound

Henry C. Williams, editor and proprietor of the Pacific Herald, a Democratic organ of Franklin County, was born April 10, 1860, in Pacific, Mo., and is the eldest of nine children born to Henry and Elizabeth (Zeiger) Williams, natives, respectively, of Etten, Holland, and Baden, Germany. Mr. Williams immigrated to the United States in 1853, and first settled in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he opened a boarding house, which he shortly after abandoned to accept a position on the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad; he subsequently obtained a position on the Missouri Pacific road, and later located at Pacific, attending to the pump and switch works of the company at that place. He was a member of the Catholic Church, of which he was a director; he was also alderman of Pacific for several terms. Mrs. Williams came to this country in 1852 with her father, and first settled in St. Louis, Mo.; her parents were Joseph and Elizabeth (Alt) Zeiger, the former a shoemaker by trade. Theodore Williams, as a farmer by occupation, and died in Holland in 1846; his wife died in 1847. Henry C. Williams received his education in the public schools in Pacific, and worked in his father’s lumber yard and office until nineteen years of age. He then opened his present job printing rooms, and January 29, 1880, issued the first number of the Pacific Herald. Since his father’s death he and his brother, Joseph P. Williams, have had the management of the lumber yard, and he is also in partnership with C. C. Close in the insurance business. He was made justice of the peace of Boles Township in 1882, serving until January, 1887, when he was elected mayor of Pacific. He has also served as alderman, and is now notary public. Mr. Williams is a rising young man; his paper is a bright, newsy sheet, averaging 1,000 subscribers, and is appreciated by the people of the surrounding country—as its prosperity attests.