My Genealogy Hound

JOHN WILLIAMS. It is doubtless entirely owing to the industrious and persevering manner with which Mr. Williams has adhered to the pursuits of agriculture that he has risen to such a substantial position in farm affairs in his county. The greater part of his life has been spent within the confines of Berrien County, and as a natural result he is much interested in the progress and development of the section and has done his full share in making it the magnificent farming region that it now is. He was born in Indiana on the 17th of December, 1838, the third child of Daniel and Malinda (Millage) Williams, a short notice of whom is given in the sketch of Charles M. Williams.

John Williams was reared in Berrien County, Mich., and obtained his education in the common schools in the vicinity of his home, but owing to the fact that his services were required on his father’s farm, he attended school only a short time each year, and thus acquired but a rudimentary knowledge of the common branches. This deficiency he remedied in later years by contact with the business world, by reading and observation, and he is now regarded as a man of more than ordinary intelligence. What Mr. Williams has accomplished in this way as well as in the accumulation of worldly goods has been at the expense of many days of hard labor, but the result has been in every way satisfactory. His devotion to business has been great and his energy unflagging, and to this all his success is due.

In 1867 he led to Hymen’s altar Miss Mary Murray, who was born in Ohio, a daughter of Thomas Murray, and to their union, which has proved to be a happy one, one daughter has been given, Laura E., who is still at home with her parents. Mr. Williams, who has always supported Republican principles, and cast his first Presidential vote for James Buchanan, is devoted to the welfare of his section and so far as his means will permit is ready to support all laudable enterprises. Upon the opening of the Civil War, all his sympathies were enlisted on the side of the Union cause, and in September, 1862, he enlisted in Company C, Twenty-fifth Michigan Infantry. He was discharged in September, 1865. In December, 1862, he was taken with measles at Louisville, Ky., and was taken to Hospital No. 15 in that city, where he remained about three months. He then rejoined his regiment but was afterwards transferred to a reserve corps and was later sent to the hospital in Chicago, where he remained about eighteen months. He was then honorably discharged from the service and returned to Berrien County, Mich., where he has since lived.

He has been the proprietor of his present farm since about 1879, which place consists of twenty acres, situated about seven and one-half miles south of St. Joseph. He is a member of the Farmers’ Mutual Fire Insurance Company, also of the Chapman Post No. 21, G. A. R., at St. Joseph. His parents were among the early settlers of this county, but were married in Elkhart, Ind.