San
Joaquin County
Biographies
ROBERT GEORGIA WILLIAMS
A native son of California, Robert
Georgia Williams was born August 19, 1864, at the old family home six miles
north of Stockton, on the Lower Sacramento Road, where he now resides with his
family. His parents were Elnathan Gavett and Mary Ann
Delilah (Landrum) Williams.
Mr. Williams was educated in the
public schools and graduated in the Stockton Business College and Normal
Institute. October 18, 1899, he was
married to Miss Mollie Jane Swartz of Terre Haute, Indiana. Three children, Raymond Gavett,
Leroy Robert and Ruth Delilah Williams are the result of this union. Raymond lost his life with the influenza when
in his twenty-first year. Leroy married
Miss Beth Blain of Stockton, and Ruth is a senior in the Stockton high
school. Mr. Williams is a farmer and
fruit grower by occupation. He is a past
master of Woodbridge Lodge, No. 131, F. & A. M., also a member of Stockton
Chapter, R. A. M. Both he and his wife
are members of the Eastern Star and of the First Congregational Church of
Stockton.
In the year 1769 John Williams was
living on Northern Neck, near Richmond, Virginia. He was the ancestor of Robert G.
Williams. Research made recently
revealed the record of his owning land and of his signing the protest against
the “Stamp Act.” He came from a Welsh
family in Maryland, and it seems possible that his father was a brother of
Joseph Williams, the father of Gen. Otho Holland
Williams of Revolutionary fame. John
Williams of Richmond died about the year 1823 aged ninety-five. He had three sons by a first marriage: Joseph, Mordecai and Benjamin. Benjamin was lost in the War of 1812. Mordecai and Joseph moved to Broadtop, Pennsylvania, where Joseph was married to Mary
Evans, who was born January 27, 1775.
Joseph was born near Richmond, Virginia, May 15, 1769. He lived at Broadtop
until 1814, when he moved to Mansfield, Ohio, where he owned the land which is
the present site of the city and was in the banking business. On arriving at Mansfield, then a small
village, he with his wife and seven sons moved into the old block-house which
still stands in the City Park at Mansfield.
The mother cleaned the blood from the floor as there had been
fighting. The town was then threatened
by a band of British and Indians, who on hearing of the treaty of peace
decamped.
Joseph Williams moved to Batesville,
Arkansas, in the year 1838 with three of his sons, Miles, Septimus
and Robert. He died there in 1840. Robert died in Batesville, leaving five
children: Mary Ellen (Moore), Amanda (Debman), John R., Charles W., and Sarah (Moore). These children all came to Stockton with
their Uncles Miles and Septimus and their families in
1853. They are all well known. John R. was a prominent druggist and Charles
was once mayor of Stockton. “Uncle” Septimus was one of the first supervisors of San Joaquin
County.
The other four sons of Joseph who
remained and reared families and died in Ohio were Amos, John, Thomas and
Aaron. Amos had two daughters. John had five children: Joseph, Christy, Miles, John Quigley and Myra. These brothers were college classmates of Dr.
Harding, father of the President. John
Q. taught school in Blooming Grove, Ohio, where President Harding, then a small
boy, was a student. Thomas left four
children, all deceased. Aaron had two
sons and two daughters.
Miles Williams, the grandfather of
Robert G. Williams, was born September 26, 1801, and was the father of thirteen
children: Alfred E., Cyrus A., Elnathan
G., William Curry, John E., Eliza S. (Spooner), Sarah E. (Spooner), Amanda A.,
Emmer, Anna, Mary J., R. F., and Malinda A. (White). Miles, with his wife and children and brother
Septimus left Batesville, Arkansas, in the Moore
train, in April, 1853, for California, where they arrived October 23, 1853,
just six months and two days of tedious travel by ox team. Joseph Williams (son of John) left Blooming
Grove, Ohio, April 18, 1853, traveled down the Mississippi to Arkansas and
started May 1 to overtake the Moore train, which he did July 1, 1853, at the
Platte River. Their route extended
northwest to Cherry Creek. They camped
where Denver now stands. From this point
they traveled northward into Yellowstone Park, crossed the summit to the head
waters of the Humboldt River and traveled down that river to the sink and
Walker River. The Sierra Nevada
Mountains were crossed near Castle Peak in Mono County and Sonora.
Elnathan G. Williams, father of
Robert G. Williams, was then a lad of fifteen years of age. He walked and drove one of the ox teams of
the family conveyance all the way. A
diary of the trip describes the plains as swarming with buffaloes. It speaks of letting the wagons down steep
inclines with ropes; of wagons overturned in a river; finding a dead man in the
road; using willows for hay; Indians stealing stock; describes a geyser in
Yellowstone; and petrified bones. They
paid forty cents per pound for flour, forty cents for bacon, and thirty-five
cents for sugar. Sonora is described as
having a rough, drinking, gambling, mixed population, talking, quarrelling and
dancing. Six days were consumed from
Sonora to Stockton. Less than ten miles
was a day’s drive. Through many perils
this family followed civilization across the continent. Their movement westward consumed eight-four
years until their homes were established in California.
Elnathan Williams married Mary Ann
Delilah Landrum in 1863. Five children,
all living, were the result of this marriage:
Robert Georgia, Noah Vesper, Mary Etta (Moore), Elizabeth Jane (Cook),
and Eugene Bloom. Mrs. Williams came
with her parents from Georgia in 1861, traveling by ox team. She died in 1899 at the age of sixty
years. The Landrum families in the
United States, so far as is known, are all descended from two brothers who
emigrated from Scotland to Virginia and South Carolina about 1750. A number of them still live in and around
their old home at Spartanburg, South Carolina, which was a part of the
battlegrounds of the Revolution in which members of the family, took part.
The history of the Williams family
began to be written when the Roman legions arrived in England in the year A. D.
55. Through the institution of heraldry
in England and Wales, an unbroken record of the generations of the family from
this date and ending with individuals now living, has been preserved. Genealogists agree that the greater number of
families of the name in England and America owe their origin to this source.
Many famous characters in the
history of England and America are of this ancestry. One remarkable genealogical record is that of
Oliver Cromwell, whose correct name was Williams. Richard Williams, great-grandfather of
Cromwell, assumed the name of Cromwell in order to inherit the estate of his
maternal uncle, Thomas Cromwell, Secretary of State, under Henry VIII. According to Burke’s genealogy he is supposed
to be descended from Carradoc of Glamorgan,
Wales, who was a son of Brutus, the first king of the Britons.
Robert Williams was the father of
Cromwell and James Williams of Northampton, Massachusetts, was the grandson of
Oliver Cromwell and the father of Timothy Williams, chairman of the “Boston Tea
Party.” James Williams was also the
great-grandfather of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine, author of the “Age of
Reason.” Roger Williams was also a
friend and relative of Cromwell. Other
relatives of Cromwell in America were Robert Williams, who came to Long Island
in 1653, and a Rev. Williams of Hadley, Massachusetts, who was a cousin of
Cromwell. He secreted the Judges Goffe and Whalley of Charles I
and protected them for many years.
Jonathan Williams, said to be one of
the most brilliant of the name, was a nephew of Benjamin Franklin, and
resembled him in manner and talents.
When Franklin went to France and induced that country to send her armies
to the rescue of the colonies, Jonathan was his private secretary.
William Williams, signer of the
Declaration of Independence, is wrongly placed by Burke as a cousin of
Franklin. He was a descendant of Robert
Williams, who came to Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1638. He lived 100 years and is the ancestor of a
great number of the noted men and statesmen of the United States.
The name of Williams is probably of
German origin, and exists with them in its purest form, “Wilhelm,” meaning
something like “strong warrior.” With
the movement of the Franks westward it was carried to France and Normandy, and
with the Conquest, to England and Wales.
The use of the plural or possessive form of Williams as a surname came
into vogue in Wales after the visit of William of Normandy to the country,
which took place in A. D. 1081.
Different descendants of the reigning princes of Wales assumed the name
and became the ancestors of the numerous families of the name in England and
Wales. The history and genealogy of
these people are well preserved, and date authentically back to the time of the
Roman occupation of the Island. Their
assumption of the name of Williams took place at a period when the custom of
using surnames as a means of indicating lineal descent was being substituted
for the primitive nomenclature of the Celtic races. From the period of the Romans to the conquest
of Wales by Edward, Wales was ruled with varied success by the princes who were
descended from Rhodra the Great, who was king of all Wales in A. D. 850. Occasionally, one of these more resourceful
than others would unite the country and become ruler. Owain Gynedd and Llywelyn the Great
were of these.
Rhoda Mawr
had several sons. Two of these live in
history: Anarawd,
as the ancestor of the rulers of North Wales, and also of generations now known
as Williams, and the other, Cadell, the ancestor of the rulers of South Wales,
and the Tudor family of England and the Stuarts of Scotland. Owain Gynedd, ruler over all Wales, was of
the ninth generation from Rhodra the Great.
He married twice; the second time to Christina, his cousin, who was of
the seventh generation from Cadell. Sir
John Wynn, who died in 1553, and who wrote a history of his family, was of the
fourteenth generation from Gynedd, and was founder of the family of Williams-Wynn.
Marchud ap (son of) Cynan,
Lord of Abergeleu, lived in 850, and was the father
of Edneyfed Vychan, a powerful noble who married twice, first to the daughter
of a lord of Anglesey (Mon). This
marriage was the ancestry of the Lloyd’s.
He married secondly, Gwenlian, daughter of
Lord Rhys of South Wales, who was of the nine generation from Cadell. This marriage was the ancestry of Owain
Tudor, who married Queen Catherine of France, widow of Henry V, and founder of
the royal House of Tudor. From the union
descended Henry VII, second removed and father of Henry VIII, Margaret and
Mary. Henry VIII was father of Queen
Elizabeth, last of the Tudors. Margaret
married James of Scotland and was grandmother of Mary Queen of Scots.
A descendant in the fifteenth
removed, of Edneyfed Vychan, by his first marriage, assumed the name of William
Williams. The ancestor of this line was
the daughter of the brother of Owain Gynedd, who was the ancestor of the
Williams-Wynns.
Of the ancestry previous to the time
of Rhodra, the record is not so clear, but both Rhodra and Marchud were descended
of a long line of regal ancestors. March
ap Cynan
is said to be descended from Brutus, first king of the Britons, who ruled B. C.
1100.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1558-1559. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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