Sent to niece, Barbara, in February 1956:
William Henry Williams, your Great Grandfather. Born in England; Father Welsh.
Came to America accompanied by his older brother who settled in South Carolina. While Wm. H. went on the Georgia married a girl from Scotland. About 9 years later we find him with his family headed West. In Arkansas financial difficulties caused him to stop near Little Rock. A letter from his brother informed him their father (David) had died and one of them should go to England to settle the estate. It was decided that the brother being the older should go as soon as possible. That trip was never made as Civil War was declared and both entered the Confederate Army. Your Great Grandfather joined the Mississippi Army. When peace came he returned to his family never having received a scratch and died a few months later. He left three sons (your grandfather being the oldest) and three daughters.
William Henry Williams, your Grandfather.
During the Civil War the guerilla's would come down from the north raiding the southern homes both large and small. At one time they took all the corn meal there was in the house and dribbled it along the road. All their supplies except a very small amount had to be kept hidden, but not in the house. Their one and only Cow was staked out in a field of sugar cane. Grass or hay and water had to be taken to her every day. When it was know that gureallia's were in the vicinity one of the children were sent into the field to remain with the cow so that she would not get excited and begin bawling.
When your grandfather was 14 the gureallia's hung him from an apple tree. With his hands tied behind his back and a rope around his neck and over a limb of the tree, he was pulled slowly up but when his face began to turn blue he was lowered and allowed a breathing spell. Then was again pulled up. This was repeated three times, continually asking him where his father was. That he could not answer as he had not seen or heard from him for almost two years.
After his fathers death your Great Grandmother with her six children and two young sisters both in their early teens, continued the preparations that were then in progress and joined a large train of oxen drawn covered wagons bound for the Far West. When they began their journey your Grandfather had just passed his 16th birthday. (1870)
Many of the incidents in the picture "Covered Wagon" were familiar to me as I had heard your Grandfather tell them many times. I was seeing a long winter evening when we as children would ask him for a story, and always I would insist before the evening was over to hear my favorite which was about the Indians. Camp has been made with the wagons drawn up tongue under the next wagon and so on until they had a complete circle. The stock were being herded close by when shortly after sundown Indians appeared on the low hills surrounding their camp. The stock were brought within the circle and the men with their guns and ammunition crawled under the wagons where they lay all night watching the Indians as they could be seen, it being a moonlit night, and all night long they rode around and around on the hills. When daylight came they rode away. There was never an explanation unless it was that they were a friendly tribe and knew there was a warring tribe in the vicinity, and in this way threw an arm of protection around the white emigrants.
Another of the stories I enjoyed was the evening when camp had been made and your Grandfather with two men went hunting. They were moving along a ledge on the side of a cliff when a snake from a crevice struck and buried his flangs into his leg just below the knee. He raised his gun in both hands and brought it down across the snake. It let go and he went over backward off the cliff, down about 30 feet into a very large bunch of brush that saved him from injuries, aside from scratches. The men rushed down and tore off the tail of his shirt, used it for a tourniquet above the knee and with him between them took him back to camp, about a mile as fast as they could. At once a man was sent off on horseback to the nearest Army post about 50 miles away. In the meantime they started their own snake bite cure by handing him one cup after another of whiskey. And told him to look at a tree that was close by and when he saw two trees to stop drinking. He must have seen a clump of trees as the following day when the doctor arrived he said there was nothing for him to do except give him something to help sober him up.
Most of the wagons in the train continued on until they reached Portland, Oregon. Your Great Grandmother arrived there with her family intact.
Later he went down to Salem, Oregon and worked in the textile mills as a weaver. He gained a reputation as a fast weaver as he received a prize for weaving the greater number of yards in one day.
It was at Salem he met and married Jane Smith, your Grandmother. They were married on September 9, 1873 and she became 15 on 12th 1873. Your Grandfather was 20 (1874) on the following 10th of January. Three children were born in Salem and Portland, Oregon. Then they moved on to The Dalles. It was there that I was born. Nine months later they again took to the road and were off for Idaho, by covered wagon, but this time horse drawn. They passed through Lewiston and over the mountains to a small settlement a short distance from Grangeville where the people were still living in cabins surrounded with a stockade, altho its protection was no longer necessary.
Shortly after their arrival your Grandfather built a cabin a few miles away in the mountains and it was there that Everett came into the world. I do not know what there was that interlude in the mountains and it was only a short time afterwards a few years that we were living on a homesteaded piece of land four and one half miles from Grangeville. The first building erected was a log house fairly good size.
Ralph David Williams, your Father. It was on this farm that your father Ralph David Williams was born, on June 1st, 1889. On July the Fourth we all went off to Grangeville for the celebration. The baby kept crying all morning and at about 11 o'clock a man that had READ medicine told mother he had some medicine that would ease the babie pain and it would sleep. Off he went to his home and he gave him three drops of what we later learned was laudumn. Ralph slept on and on, attended by either his wife or his Mother. At 4 o'clock Your grandfather was sent for and he gathered up their brood and we went home. Before we reached the farm every one became worried as he could not be awakened. Our oldest brother Willie was sent back to Grangeville for doctor Bidde. When they returned Willie's horse was in a lather and doctor Bidde was standing up in his buggy using his whip. Willie's instructions that it was an emergency had had its effect both on him and the doctor. I was only 7 years old but I can still see big fat doctor Bidde with his large stomache shaking as he with the baby's back against his chest running round the house with the wind blowing in the baby's face trying to awaken him. Eventually he was awakened but how I do not know. Ralph was sickly and frail until he was about 9 or 10, and then he was strong enough to throw a shake as I came around the corner of a building which slit my eye lid open and your Grandfather put in two stitches.
When Ralph was 14 I wrote a speech for him that was listed on the program as "Fourth of July Oration, by Ralph D. Williams." It was considered a very fine speech for which he received many congratulations, and always the question, "Who wrote it for you?" The answer was a little evasive, usually "Sis helped me with it." I got a kick out of it as I had collected every speech that had been delivered by men of importance from and before we gained our independence. I took a little here and a little there and then tied them together with my own thoughts, and Mother and Father did the criticizing. I had won a medal for speaking a few years before and I gave Ralph all the instructions I had received and all together he did marvelously well making us all very proud of him.
Your Father was always rather fleet of foot and when in High School a Football team was thrown together by Prof. Greenwald and Ralph was the outstanding player. In order that they could have a real game the young men about town formed a team and the day they played was a red letter day for the town. I almost lost my voice when Ralph made a touchdown. Altho Everett and Loveless were on the team, and Loveless was at that time my boy friend, my cheers were for the High School team. I think Loveless was a little disappointed with me that day.
PS: This is to be inserted on page 4 before Ralph David Williams and after "house of fairly good size.
William Henry Williams your Grandfather. During the Cleveland administration there was an awful depression and your Grandfather with thousands and thousands of sheep which had to be sheared, the wool taken by freight wagons to Lewiston ran into a heavy indebtedness, as the depression continued year after year. Others took advantage of the bankruptcy laws but your Grandfather refused and sold his sheep for approximately 50 cent per head, and the wool only brought a few cents like 4 or 5, but he managed to pay all debts but was completely broke financially and his life as well as he never managed to try for a come back, and life was afterwards a make shift.
At the time of his death he was acting as a deputy Marshall in Grangeville, with a population of something over 2,000.
