REV.
WOLCOTT BIGELOW WILLIAMS
REV.
WOLCOTT BIGELOW WILLIAMS, a pioneer minister of Charlotte, and the editor of this volume, was born on a farm in
Brooklyn, Connecticut, on the 13th day of August, 1823. Until thirteen years of age he attended the
district schools and the Academy, which was two and a half miles distant. He
then removed with his parents to Laporte county, Indiana. The country was new
and the schools were few and poor. For several years he worked on the farm
summers and in winter attended school in the log school houses. During these
years much of his life was spent in the open air, just at the time when he was
growing most rapidly, and thus he acquired the robust health that has been so
valuable all through life. When seventeen years of age he taught a winter school
at eleven dollars a month and board, and after the fashion of those days boarded
around. The next winter he received fourteen dollars and board in the same
district. After this during two fall terms he attended a select school in
Michigan City taught by Rev. James Towner; one term he boarded in a club and the
other he tended the light house for his board, for, besides the select school.
Mr. Towner held the office of lighthouse keeper. There was at that time no
harbor at Michigan City, but large quantities of wheat and corn were shipped
from that point, and the vessels mould come to anchor about a half mile from
shore and stretching a cable from the vessel to the pier were loaded by means of
lighters pulled and polled back and forth. By working night and day vessels
could be loaded in about twenty-four hours; laborers were paid at the rate of a
shilling an hour during the day time and eighteen cents during the night. Money
was very scarce among the boys during those days, and young Williams and other
students were glad to avail themselves of these opportunities to earn a little
spending money. About the year 1810 an "underground railroad" was laid
from
Missouri
to
Detroit
and Mr. Williams made several trips as conductor on that road. His was a night
run of about eighteen miles. In the year 1842 Mr. Webster made a treaty with
Great Britain by which the right to search vessels was denied and after that
when once slaves were on board a British propeller in Chicago they were as safe
as if in Canada. This greatly shortened the line, and broke down the track east
of
Chicago. When Mr. Williams was twenty years of age, he felt that he must have a better
education if he was to continue to teach school. He had heard of
Oberlin
College
and that a young man could work his way there, and he determined to go there
and spend a couple of years in studying the English branches. Oberlin was more
than three hundred miles away and the journey was to be made on foot over muddy
roads. He left home March 27, 1844, with a satchel filled with books and
clothing strapped upon his back, an umbrella in one hand and a bag of provisions
in the other. He caught a chance to ride only forty of the three hundred miles.
It was before the railroads were built, and his bedding and other things were to
be sent to
Cleveland by water as soon as navigation opened. Meantime he was an entire stranger in
town and had not money enough to pay for lodgings at a hotel. He found at once a
place to work for his board and looking into the barn of his landlady, he found
there a pile of hay, so after the studies of the first day were over he went
down to the barn and slept there. The next day the kind woman for whom he worked
inquired into his affairs, and offered him the use of a straw bed and comforters
until his own goods arrived, and by forming a partnership with another student
who had sheets and some other bedding, he was comfortably lodged the next night
in the college building. In the fall he returned home having been gone eight
months and traveled over six hundred miles. He left no debts behind him, aside
from what he earned his expenses for the time were only twenty-four dollars, and
twelve dollars of these went for tuition. The summer's contact with college
life, however, awakened a love for study and he entered upon the regular college
course, and was graduated from the college in 1850 and from the theological
department in 1833. On the 5th of the following October he was married in the
city of
Buffalo
to Mary A. Thompson. He had previously accepted a call to the newly organized
church in Charlotte, then a village of about fifty families. At that time the
church had only sixteen members and there was no house of worship within ten
miles of the place and only two frame meeting houses in the county that were
completed. During the following year after a hard struggle the society erected a
house of worship costing $1,000. Mr. Williams remained pastor for thirteen
years. Soon after the close of the war he resigned the pastorate to accept an
agency for the American Missionary Association, which was then planting schools
among the children of the freedmen in the late slave states. Previous to
entering upon the work he spent a month in visiting the schools in
Nashville
,
Chattanooga,
Atlanta,
Macon, Andersonville and
Memphis. While in Atlanta
the "Storrs" school building was dedicated and Mr. Williams delivered the dedicatory
address. This was the first school building erected for the colored children in
the state of Georgia. He at this time also assisted in the ordination of Rev. E. A. Ware, who was
for many years at the head of the school work there. Two years later Mr.
Williams was appointed by the Congregational Home Missionary Society
superintendent of missions with southern and eastern
Michigan
for his field. In this work he continued ten years. He has been quite
successful in raising money, he has assisted at the dedication of some
eighty-four churches and in raising money to pay the last bills on the same. He
also raised the greater part of the money for the erection of the present
Congregational Church in
Charlotte. In l878 he attempted to raise the money to endow a professorship in the
Oberlin Theological seminary, and in about eighteen months he had secured some
$19.000. In 1887 he succeeded in raising a subscription of $100,000 for
Olivet College. When the union schools were established here, Mr. Williams was a member of the
board and rendered much valuable help in their organization and in the
establishment of the high school. He conducted the first teacher's institute
ever held in the county. He also served fourteen years on the board of trustees
of Oberlin
College. He assisted in the organization of the college at Olivet and has been one of
its trustees ever since, a period of forty-seven years. It was he who first
called attention to the site of the Maple Hill cemetery, and led to its purchase
and tasteful platting. He has had four children: Alice Thompson who died in
infancy; Edith Burr who died in her twentieth year, and Sarah and Herbert, who
still survive. Mrs. Williams also lives and has encouraged her husband in his
work for more than fifty-two years. A portrait of Rev. Williams will be found as
a frontispiece.