WILLIAMSON, Hon. John - 1890 Bio (1822-1902)

WILLIAMSON, PATERSON, MARSDEN

Posted By: Joey Stark
Date: 9/5/2007 at 16:25:26

Portrait and Biographical Album of Jefferson and Van Buren Counties, Iowa, Printed 1890 by Lake City Publishing Co., Chicago
Pages 260 and 263

Hon. John WILLIAMSON, superintendent of the County Poor Farm of Jefferson County, was born in Penrith, Cumberland County, England, December 25, 1822. His father, Richard WILLIAMSON, was a stonemason by trade and a weaver of fancy goods, but followed the latter occupation during the greater of his life. He married Margaret PATTERSON, a woman of excellent qualities of head and heart, and at her knee young John received the rudiments of education, for he never attended school, except Sunday-school. But throughout life he has been a student and has acquired a valuable fund of knowledge which many having the advantages of scholastic training, might well envy. When fourteen years of age he was deprived of the loving influence and care of his mother who died at the age of forty years, leaving five children, three sons and two daughters. Only one of his brothers came to the United States, Hiram, who crossed the waters in 1850, and is now a boss weaver in Massachusetts. Late in life his father also came to America where he spent his last days, his death occurring in Fairfield, Iowa, November 13, 1860, twelve days before his sixty-seventh birthday.

When a lad of eleven years John WILLIAMSON learned the weaver's trade with his father and continued to follow that pursuit during his residence in his native land. On the 8th of May, 1851, he married Susan MARSDEN, a native of Yorkshire, England, born December 16, 1818, and on the sixty-fifth anniversary of American independence they sailed for this country. After a voyage of six weeks on the briny deep, they reached Boston Harbor in August, 1851. Going to Dover, N. H., both Mr. and Mrs. WILLIAMSON began work in a factory, for their money had all been expended on the trip and something must be done immediately to provide for their support. During four years of labor and saving, they had acquired enough to enable them to make an investment in western lands and with that purpose in view they came to Jefferson County in May, 1855, where they purchased fifty acres of prairie land, four miles west of Fairfield. It had taken the proceeds of seven years of labor in England to bring the young couple to the United States, whereas, as the result of four years labor in Dover, they cleared nearly $1000 or enough to buy a comfortable home. By industry and economy they afterwards extended the boundaries of their farm, until now one hundred and twenty acres pays to them a golden tribute in return for the care and cultivation bestowed upon it.

In Keosauqua on the 30th of October, 1856, Mr. WILLIAMSON became a naturalized citizen of America, since which time, he has been a stanch supporter of Republican principles. He has always taken an active interest in public affairs and at the time the county board consisted of one supervisor for each township, he was appointed to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Mr. Hampson, and was elected the succeeding term. In 1881, he made the race for the Legislature on the Republican ticket. The question submitting the prohibition amendment was then the all important issue. He was asked his views and in a letter to the prohibition club of Pleasant Plain, he announced his determination to favor submission. The Republicans published his letter and so did the Democrats, by tacking it up in public places and in saloons where their partisans would be certain to see it. The county was thoroughly aroused and though the Republican majority was only about one hundred, Mr. WILLIAMSON carried the day by a vote of four hundred and thirty-two above his opponent. In the Legislature he did some good work. He took a stand against the industrial bill which proposed to make the State Agricultural Society a State institution, and by his personal influence defeated it. In 1886 he was selected from six candidates as Superintendent of the County Farm and should have assumed the duties of the position March 1, 1887. Owing to the mismanagement and the extreme dissatisfaction given by his predecessor, Mr. WILLIAMSON was substituted before that time. Under his efficient management the cost of conducting the farm has been greatly reduced, and almost without an exception he has found favor in the eyes of all the citizens of the county. During the war he served a short time as commissary for the home guards, the stores consisting of five gallons of brandy. (P.S. He was not a Prohibitionist at that time.)

As a public speaker, Mr. WILLIAMSON is in great demand, whether at Old Settlers Associations, in political campaigns or as a Fourth of July orator. His speeches abound in native eloquence and invincible logic. His maiden speech was made in Burlington, Iowa, where he nominated M. A. McCoid for Congress. He takes an active part in political conventions and is said, by those who have been pitted against him, to be a hard man to out-general. Under the disadvantages of poverty and lack of educational opportunities Mr. WILLIAMSON had to fight his own battles, and is, in the truest sense of the word, a self-made man.

*Transcribed for genealogy purposes; I have no relation to the person(s) mentioned.