My Genealogy Hound

Dr. Charles Williams, physician and surgeon at House’s Springs, and the son of Hon. Stephen C. and Eleanor (Evans) Williams, was born in Licking County, Ohio, in 1846. Stephen C. was born in Newark, N. J., about 1818, and when but a child came with his father, Elias Williams, to Licking County, where he was reared and where he has since made his home, as a well-to-do and substantial farmer. In early life he represented Licking County in the State Legislature one term of two years, and was also for many years a director of the county infirmary. His father was a native of New Jersey, as was also his wife, and a soldier in the War of 1812. The mother of Charles was born in Licking County, Ohio, in 1820, and died in 1872. The Doctor was reared at home and educated in the common schools and at Denison University, at Granville, Ohio. He was in the 100 days’ service under Capt. H. Beard, of the One Hundred and Sixtieth Ohio United States National Guards, and operated in Virginia. He came to St. Louis in 1866, and served as shipping clerk in the Missouri Pacific Railroad freight depot. He came to Jefferson County in 1868, and here taught school for two or three years. In 1870 he began the study of medicine with Dr. E. J. Thurman, of Fenton, and graduated from the St. Louis Medical College two years later. He then practiced his profession at Fenton for two years, after which he went to Lemay Ferry, and six years later removed to House’s Springs, where he has since remained engaged in a successful practice. March, 1872, he married Miss Missouri E. Harbison, of Fenton, who died in 1881, leaving two children, Eleanor and Edwina. In 1886 the Doctor married Miss Emma Sue Stephens, a native of Jefferson County, daughter of Washington and Elizabeth Stephens, natives of Kentucky and Missouri, respectively. Mrs. Williams was born August 18, 1858. Her father, Rev. Washington Stephens, was born in 1908, in Lexington, Ky., where he was educated, living there until fourteen years of age. Then he removed to Missouri, locating near Hillsboro, the present county seat of Jefferson County, where he taught school in winter and worked at farming in summer, until he attained the age of twenty-four years. Becoming converted, he professed religion and joined the Baptist Church, and almost immediately afterward commenced preaching, and has since (covering a period of over fifty years) been engaged in the ministry. He is the oldest minister of any denomination living in the county, and perhaps in this part of the State, and has probably baptized more converts than any minister in this portion of Missouri. Although upward of eighty years of age he is still zealous in his calling, and while his physical vigor will not permit him to go through what he once could and did, yet he is ever found ready to obey his master’s call. Dr. Williams is a Democrat in politics, his first presidential vote being for Greeley in 1872. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity and of the A. O. U. W.