My Genealogy Hound

Ephraim Williams, farmer and gardener, was born in Fiddington, Somersetshire, England, June 16, 1835. He is one of the thirteen children born to Robert and Elizabeth Williams, and his education was acquired mainly in the night schools, the advantages of the school system being limited there at that time. At the age of sixteen or seventeen he was apprenticed to a Mr. Norman to learn the carpenter’s trade, with whom he served five years. He afterward visited various towns and cities of England, and in 1862 located in London, where he followed his trade ten years. December 23, 1862, in Bath, England, he married Miss Elizabeth Bond, a native of Pitney, Somersetshire, England, who was born May 10, 1835. They have had five children, viz.: Robert (deceased), Thomas, Annie Elizabeth, Mary Jessie and Ellen, the latter two being born in Jefferson County, Mo. In June, 1870, Mr. Williams and family embarked from Liverpool for America, landing in Quebec, Canada. They spent one winter in Oswego, N. Y., but the weather was so severe they concluded to look for more congenial climes, and moved to St. Louis, where Mr. Williams engaged in carpentering. He was subsequently employed to erect the residence of W. S. Jewett, in Plattin Rock, Jefferson County, to which place he moved his family, and he it was who drove the first nail in the interest of the American Plate Glass Company, toward the completion of what is now Crystal City. He owns sixty-eight and one-half acres of land in Joachim Township and is engaged in farming and market gardening, in which he has been quite successful. The family are Presbyterians in religion, and, politically, Mr. Williams is a Democrat.