Santa Clara County
Biographies
THOMAS GRAHAM WILLIAMS
THOMAS GRAHAM WILLIAMS. Among the men of extended general
experience who are successfully prosecuting agricultural pursuits in the
Evergreen district, mention is due Thomas Graham Williams, who came to
California in 1896, and who has occupied his present ranch of eighteen acres on
the Santa Clara and Los Gatos roads, one mile south of Santa Clara, since 1900.
On both sides of his family Mr. Williams claims Virginia ancestry, for his
father, Thomas H., and his mother, Susan (Graham) Williams, were born in
the Old Dominion, went to school there, and finally united their fortunes among
the surroundings of their childhood. They went to Missouri ere it had become a
state, located on a farm in Sheridan county, and
remained there until 1864, two years after the birth of their son, Thomas. He
was next to the youngest of five children, and the only son, who was born
March 15, 1862. The next home of the family was in McDonough county, Ill., where Mr. Williams engaged in
carpentering and building, in Blandensville, and
where he has recently celebrated his seventy-fifth anniversary. He has been a
widower for several years.
Thomas Graham Williams had the advantages of the common
schools of McDonough county, Ill., supplemented by a
course in the Gem City Business College at Quincy, Ill., from which he was
graduated in the class of 1883. For the following four years he was bookkeeper
in the Bank of Table Rock, at Table Rock, Neb., and in 1887 removed to Montana,
where he was bookkeeper for the transportation, stage and ore hauling concern
of Sappington & Company for ten years. In December, 1896, he came to
California and bought forty acres of land in the Evergreen district, which he
sold in 1900 and purchased his present ranch of eighteen acres. His
improvements include a neat little cottage, surrounded with flowers and shrubs,
and a dryer for his prunes. He has been twice married, his first wife, formerly
Carrie Campbell, a native of Illinois, having died there in 1896. In San
Jose, in November, 1900, he was united in marriage with Mabel Allen, who
was born in Wisconsin, and who has one son, Jesse. Mr. Williams is a
Republican, but has no official aspirations. He is high minded and generous,
loyal to friends, to his work, and the community in which he makes his home.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard 14 November 2015.
ญญญญSource: History
of the State of California & Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A. M., Pages
886-889. The Chapman Publishing Co.,
Chicago, 1904.
ฉ 2015 Marie
Hassard.