Biographies For Muscatine County Iowa 1889

Source: Portrait and Biographical Album, Muscatine County, Iowa, 1889, page 341
HON. JOSEPH WILLIAMS, who was a prominent jurist of Iowa, and an early settler of Muscatine, was born at Greensburg, Westmoreland Co., Pa., Dec. 28, 1801. He received a classical education, secured largely by his own efforts; afterward studied law with John B. Alexander, Esq., of the Westmoreland bar, and was admitted to practice at the age of twenty-one years. He soon won prominence at the bar of Westmoreland and adjoining counties, which was well deserved. In 1827 he was united in marriage with Miss Mary R. Meason, a daughter of Gen. Thomas Meason, and a niece of Hon. John Kennedy, late Judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. After several years of successful practice in the courts of that State, and holding clerkships in the Senate, and in conventions to form a new State constitution, he received from the Government of the United States, in the month of June, 1838, a commission as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Iowa. After service of more than eight years in that capacity he retired at the expiration of the commission and became a member of the bar. In 1848, by the joint ballot of the Legislative Assembly, he was again called to the position of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Iowa for a term of six years. During the year of his retirement from the bench he was chosen an Elector in the Presidential election of 1848, and cast his vote for Gens. Cass and Butler.

Judge Williams came to Muscatine in 1837, making this city his home for twenty years, when he removed to Ft. Scott, Kan., where he resided for two years, and then returned to Muscatine, settling on a farm six miles distant from the city. After continuing his residence there for about seven years, he returned to Ft. Scott, Kan. where his death occurred in 1871. His wife survived him but two years, dying in 1873. Their family consisted of four sons and one daughter, Thomas M., John K., William, Georgiana (now the wife of William C. Brewster ), and Joseph W. Judge Williams was an earnest Democrat in politics, and bore a conspicuous part in the early history of the Iowa Judiciary.

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