1 The Early Years: Connecticut and Ohio, 1787–1830

Frederick Granger Williams was a New Englander, born at Suffield, Hartford County, Connecticut, on October 28, 1787. He was the oldest of five children born to William Wheeler Williams and Ruth Granger, who were pioneers of the Connecticut Western Reserve in Ohio. His father, who went by his middle name, Wheeler,¹ and four of his uncles served in the Revolutionary War; two of them were killed during the action. One uncle, Joseph Williams, rose to the rank of brigadier general in the Continental Army in 1796.²

Suffield, Connecticut

Situated in a wooded expanse on the Connecticut River near the Massachusetts border, Suffield, with a population of 2,300, was one of the larger towns in the Connecticut Valley when Frederick G. Williams was born. This was no frontier area: the municipal incorporation had been effected by the Massachusetts Colony in 1679, and in 1787 Suffield reflected the general stability and refinement of the Puritan New England culture, including large two- and three-story frame homes furnished with the finest objects of the day and boasting nicely kept lawns and orchards. The town also likely enjoyed a sizeable library, judging from the fact that in 1921 there were more than eighty books still extant bearing the original library’s seal and the date of 1791.³ Suffield was also home to eleven schools (including a law school) in three districts, as well as five church societies. These were all Congregational churches. The first non-Congregational society was the Baptists, which was organized in 1769, followed by the Methodists in 1832 and the Catholics in 1886. As in other New England towns, Suffield’s civil and ecclesiastical authority were one in the same, and citizens voted on affairs in both areas at the same town meeting. Freedom of religion did not become part of the Connecticut constitution until 1818. Suffield was also the business center for the surrounding area, ranking in that day as the near equal of Hartford and Springfield in wealth, population, and business activity. Among the more than twenty-five industries listed for Suffield in that early day were shipbuilding, mining, tanning, tailoring, textile manufacturing, printing and book publishing, and a variety of milling industries, including lumber, cotton, and grist.⁴

The Williamses had been in New England for several generations.⁵ We do not know what trade the senior Williams followed in Suffield, but we do know that his family included well-to-do landowners, farmers, and sea merchants, and it is probable that Wheeler was engaged in one or more of these activities.⁶ It was in these busy, cultured surroundings that young Frederick G. Williams spent his boyhood and received his early training.

The Connecticut Western Reserve

During the seventeenth century, the English kings had parceled out American land without much regard to geography. In the early years of colonization, the overlapping grants didn’t pose too much of a problem because of the extent of available land. But by 1750, Connecticut was becoming, in the eyes of its residents, “filled up.” The only “open” land that remained was on their western claims—everything between the latitudes 41º and 42º north, as provided by Charles II’s original charter—but that land was virtually closed to them since portions of it were also claimed by the larger and more powerful colonies of New York and Pennsylvania.

The resolution of this and countless other boundary disputes among the states was one of the most pressing problems that faced the First Congress of the United States. Eventually, each state’s boundary lines were drawn and all the western claims were relinquished, making the Northwest Territory public domain, land Congress could sell to support the young country. “By deed of cession in 1786 Connecticut gave up her western lands, but reserved a one hundred and twenty mile strip west of the established Pennsylvania border.”⁷ This “reservation” (which was bigger than the mother state) was allowed by Congress partly because Connecticut was considered small and overcrowded, partly because it had agreed to the New York and Pennsylvania boundary decisions, and partly as a reward for Connecticut’s part in the Revolutionary War; even before that war for independence, Connecticut’s sons had served in four wars for Mother England. This strip of land 120 miles by 50 miles containing 3.3 million acres (more or less conforming to the northeastern corner of present-day Ohio) became known as the Connecticut Western Reserve, or simply the Western Reserve.⁸

In 1795, the Connecticut legislature sold the biggest portion of the Western Reserve to the Connecticut Land Company for $1.2 million. To secure the bond and mortgage, this association of men pledged large amounts of their own money and invited others to be shareholders in the company. One of these shareholders was William Wheeler Williams, the father of Frederick G. Williams, who in the spring of 1800 moved his family and a party of settlers from Connecticut to Newburgh, Ohio, then about five miles from Cleveland, both on the Western Reserve.

Before the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, it took about three months to travel the five hundred miles from Suffield to Cleveland. The mode of travel was horse or wagon on land and flat boats on rivers and lakes. Starting at Suffield in the north central section of Connecticut, the general route taken in those days was west across Connecticut and central New York to Canandaigua, and thence to Buffalo, where there was a tavern at which the travelers could stay. From this point, the journey was made by boat down Lake Erie. Many Indians were still in the area, but they were in general friendly, for in 1796 the Iroquois Indian representatives had agreed to allow the white man to settle as far west as the Cuyahoga River in present-day Ohio.

The Move to Cleveland, Ohio: Construction of the Mills

Frederick’s schooling was interrupted during his eleventh year, when the family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, then a settlement of one house.⁹ They likely were the second family to arrive. His father, Wheeler Williams, was contracted by the Connecticut Land Company to build and operate a flour mill and a sawmill in the vicinity of Cleveland.

Of the many New England families who came to Cleveland in that early day there were none that could claim better birth and breeding than that of William Wheeler Williams from Norwich, Conn. His parents were Joseph and Eunice (Wheeler) Williams, both descended from Puritan ancestors who settled first in Massachusetts about 1630. He brought his wife and five little children with him, the eldest only twelve years of age, the youngest but two.¹⁰

The senior Williams had come the previous year to build a cabin. Once established, he and Major Wyatt commenced building a mill at the falls at Newburgh. The millstones for the grinding were made by David Bryant and his son Gilman, who has left us with a brief description of the mill.

We made two trips in the summer of 1799, and in the fall, father and myself returned to Cleveland, to make a pair of mill stones for Mr. Williams, about five miles east of Cleveland, near the trail to Hudson. We made the mill stones on the right hand side of the stream as you go up, fifteen or twenty feet from the stream, and about half a mile from the mill, which was under a high bank, and near a fall in said stream of forty or fifty feet. If any person will examine, they will find the remains and pieces of the rock, the said stones were made of. The water was conveyed to the mill in a dugout trough, to an under-shot wheel about twelve feet over, with one set of arms, and buckets fifteen inches long, to run inside of the trough, which went down the bank at an angle of forty-five degrees, perhaps. The dam was about four rods above fall; the mill stones were three and a half feet in diameter, of gray rock.¹¹

This being one of the first mills on the Western Reserve and the only one for a hundred-mile radius, “its completion was celebrated in an appropriate manner. All the neighborhood roundabout was asked to be present—some ten families in number.”¹² During the following winter the citizens enjoyed the luxury of bolted flour, made in their own mill, from wheat they themselves had harvested.¹³

In the year 1800, the Williamses erected the first sawmill on the Reserve, which provided the much-needed lumber for all the early construction in this new land. For constructing and putting these mills into operation, Williams received at a reduced rate “11,306 acres of land, including his mill sites and much of the land now covered by the village of Newburgh, with provisions for himself and family for one year, $100 in cash, and all the castings essential to the construction of his mills.”¹⁴

The presence of these two mills attracted the majority of settlers to Newburgh rather than Cleveland (for many years Cleveland was simply referred to as “that place six miles from Newburg”),¹⁵ and ownership of them gave Mr. Williams a very handsome income. He practically had a monopoly on the two basic life-sustaining activities of the region: food and construction, so it is not surprising that he became a prominent figure among the settlers, filling various high offices. Beginning in 1802, when the inhabitants organized themselves into a township, the elder Williams was elected as one of Cleveland’s first three trustees and one of two overseers of the poor (this latter office he held again in 1805 and 1812). He was judge of the election in 1804, 1805, 1806, and again in 1810. In 1806, he was one of the patrons of the first school, where four of his children studied.¹⁶

Ruth Granger Williams, Frederick’s mother, was thirty-five years old when she arrived on the frontier of the Western Reserve with her five children.

Although she left many descendants in this vicinity, it has been difficult to learn much concerning the personality of Ruth Granger, wife of W. W. Williams, the pioneer miller of the city and one who filled offices of trust and stood high in the community. The couple came from Suffield and Norwich, Conn., and Ruth was thirty-five years old when she arrived in 1800 in Newburg, long since a part of the city [of Cleveland]. Mr. Williams had four brothers who were officers in the war of the Revolution, and his wife’s family, the Grangers, were notable New England people.

The family settled on what is now Woodhill Road, and there Ruth Williams died. She was small, alert, and very intelligent. Years before her death, she was stricken with blindness, but developed such acute hearing that no one could enter her room, ever so cautiously, but she would know and tell who it was. Her daughter Mary married Amos Cahoon, and Martha married Elijah Peet, well known pioneer. They lived on West 3rd Street for some years. They were charter members of the First Methodist church, and their memory is revered by that society.¹⁷

The five children of William Wheeler and Ruth Granger Williams were all born in the latter part of the eighteenth century in Suffield, Connecticut: Frederick Granger Williams (1787–1842), William Wheeler Williams Jr. (1790–1852), Joseph Williams (1792?–1813), Martha Williams (1794–1867), and Mary “Polly” Williams (1797–1874).¹⁸ A sixth child was born in 1799 but died soon after its birth.¹⁹

Youthful Activities

Young Frederick’s life was much different in Newburgh than it had been in Suffield. This was frontier country, newly acquired from the Iroquois Indians, and for the first few years he was essentially deprived of both formal schooling and church attendance. As one historian put it, “The pioneers did, indeed, take thought for what they considered to be their spiritual welfare, erecting a distillery as early as 1800, but religious interests were not awakened until a later day.”²⁰ As the eldest child, much was expected of young Williams. In addition to working on his father’s farm, where he helped plant and care for a large apple orchard, he cleared land, worked at the mills, and helped construct their new home on a tree-covered bluff overlooking the bay. He was also on hand for barn raising or cabin building. “It was always a merry occasion when a cabin was raised. The neighbors from miles around would come to lend a hand, and usually finished the job in a single day. Their ‘women folks’ meanwhile, would assist the housewife by quilting for her, and when the day’s work was over all would join in a dance.”²¹ Frederick also had the care of the younger children and, as time went on, took over other household duties usually performed by his mother, whose eyes had begun to fail. As indicated above, Ruth Granger Williams eventually lost her sight entirely. But rather than object to the extra burdens this placed on him, Frederick perhaps took pride in being of service to his mother. Working this close with her likely gave him a gentleness and sensitivity he would not otherwise have acquired growing up on the frontier.

All was not work, however. There was dancing, boating, swimming at the falls, fishing, and bear trapping as well as other forms of hunting. A young man could earn as much as four dollars for every wolf scalp he brought in. We learn more of the activities Frederick G. Williams engaged in from John Harmon, who, in a letter written in 1860, described early Cleveland and his stay with the Williams family, which included their having “danced to the music of Major Samuel Jones’s violin.”

I first visited Cleveland, that part now called Newburg, in August, 1806, a boy sixteen and a half years, and spent some ten days, perhaps more, in the family of W. W. Williams. During my stay there, I formed some acquaintance with those of the neighborhood, especially with those young men or youths of my age, among whom were the Williams, the Hamilton’s, the Plumbs and Kingsbury’s, the Burks and the Gun’s. . . . Newburg street was opened previously, from the mill north to Doan’s Corners, and was then lined with cultivated fields on both sides, nearly the whole distance from Judge Kingsbury’s to the mill. But much dead timber remained on the fields. There were some orchards of apple trees on some of the farms, and Judge Kingsbury’s orchard bore a few apples that season, which was probably the first season of bearing. The Judge had a small nursery of apple trees, and there was a larger nursery of smaller trees on Mr. Williams’s place.²²

The style of dress for a dance and the mode of transportation for a couple’s evening of entertainment in that day are described by another companion, Gilman Bryant, who had helped build the Williamses’ mill stones: “He was 17; she, about 14 years of age. He was dressed in a gingham suit with his hair queued with black ribbon, and rubbed with a piece of candle and then powdered with flour; a pair of brogans and a wool hat completed his costume. The young lady secured her fresh calico dress to the horse’s back before she, in her under petticoat, mounted the horse behind her escort and started for Carter’s ball-room.”²³ The hair rubbed with a candle and then powdered with flour was in the absence of a white wig, so fashionable in that day. It would appear that the voluminous undergarments revealed no secrets and allowed a young lady riding horseback to keep her modesty as well as an unwrinkled dress.

Y. L. Morgan, a visitor who came to Cleveland in the fall of 1811 and stayed through the spring of 1812, made a geographical census of the families he met, entitled “Names of Early Settlers Whom I Knew.” In his description of the south side, he mentioned William W. Williams and his three sons by name: “Then on the south, now Woodland Hills avenue, first came Richard Blin, Rodolphus Edwards, and Mr. Stephens, a school teacher; Mr. Honey, James Kingsbury, David Burras, Eben Hosmer, John Wightman, William W. Williams and three sons, Frederick, William W., Jr., and Joseph.”²⁴

Commodore Perry and the Battle on the Great Lakes

The Williamses and the other inhabitants of the Cleveland area were greatly affected when war was declared against Great Britain in 1812. Cleveland became one of the important military stations of the lake country. Fort Huntington, a small stockade, was built on the shore near Seneca Street, from which arms and munitions were issued to the volunteer soldiers, and where the militia was drilled and made ready for a possible attack. The American defense of the lake region depended on the forces of General Van Rensselaer at Niagara to the north and General Hull at Detroit to the west. Both garrisons were considered large enough to give adequate protection against an attack, so when the news of General Hull’s surrender to the British at Detroit reached Cleveland, just two months after war was declared, anxiety and fear reached a fevered pitch. All available men were pressed into service, and the entire town was evacuated to the less exposed parts of the interior.

Lieutenant Oliver H. Perry, in charge of training a small flotilla stationed at Newport, Rhode Island, when war broke out, desired a more active role in the fight and requested of the secretary of the navy that he be sent to the British-controlled Great Lakes area. It wasn’t until February 1813, however, that Perry was commissioned commodore and given command of the Upper Lakes region. When he arrived at Lake Erie, he had to literally build the ships with which to oppose Commodore Barclay’s English fleet. From hundreds of miles around, men and equipment came to Sandusky, Ohio, and for the next seven months, Perry tried to make sailors out of what men he received, while his crews made shipbuilders out of carpenters. The difficulty he had in obtaining the necessary men to man his ships is evident by the repeated pleas Perry made in the correspondence sent to the secretary of the navy. On July 20, 1813, he wrote: “Give me men, sir, and I will acquire both for you and myself honor and glory on this lake, or perish in the attempt. . . . I again ask you to think of my situation; the enemy in sight, the vessels under my command more than sufficient, and ready to make sail, and yet obliged to bite my fingers with vexation for want of men.”²⁵ Again on July 23, 1813, he wrote, “I shall try for volunteers for our cruise. . . . I am very deficient in officers of every kind. Send me officers and men, and honor is within our grasp.”²⁶ In a letter dated July 30, 1813, Perry stated that he had not enough officers of experience even to navigate the ships, and none to train and drill the men in the manual of arms.²⁷

Only about half of the men he needed came, however, “and to supply in some measure the lack of marines, Lieutenant Brooks was directed to enlist as many men as he could in Erie. He eventually recruited about forty men, at ten dollars a month, for four months’ service, or until after a naval engagement.”²⁸ Part of the reason for the scarcity of men was the general difficulty the young nation had in recruiting men and then transporting them the distance to Lake Erie. Partly too, Perry’s own superior officers kept most of the men who had originally been assigned to him, and what men there were in the yet sparsely populated Ohio Lake region (there were only fifty-seven people living in Cleveland in 1810 and only about one hundred and fifty in 1820)²⁹ were recruited in the Ohio volunteers for the defense of the towns.

Among those who joined the American forces were the three Williams boys. Twenty-one-year-old Joseph became a private in Captain Harvey Murray’s company, Ohio Militia³⁰ (and may have died during the war); twenty-three-year-old William Wheeler Jr. became a sergeant in Captain Allen Gaylord’s Company, Ohio Militia;³¹ and twenty-six-year-old Frederick G. became a ship’s pilot, directing twenty-eight-year-old Commodore Perry around the lake region during those months of preparation until the organization of the fleet was completed. ³² The Great Lakes, more like seas, are said to contain one-fifth of the planet’s total “free” fresh water (not frozen in polar ice caps) and are known for having treacherous storms, particularly ice storms in the winter, when many ships have been lost. To be a pilot on the Great Lakes, especially in the nineteenth century, was a great challenge and, if one succeeded, a great accomplishment.

It is not known for sure whether Frederick G. Williams was with Commodore Perry during the decisive Battle of Lake Erie on September 10, 1813, when Commodore Barclay was defeated and the Americans regained control of the lakes, although his son Ezra G. Williams seems to indicate that he was: “They were close friends and after the battle, where he acted as pilot for Perry, he hastened him to General Harrison and on up the river into the Tecumseh War.”³³

Although Williams does not figure among any of the crews, author Nancy Williams in After 100 Years quoted the United States Director of Naval Records as saying, “If he was on shipboard during the engagement, it must have been as a hired pilot. Of that we have no record.”³⁴

The Battle of the Thames, Death of Chief Tecumseh

Williams apparently accompanied Commodore Perry and General Harrison into battle on October 5, 1813, in what has since been called the Battle of the Thames, where Tecumseh and his Indian warriors and the English land troops were defeated.

The General, with his captain and forces took Perry, who had asked for the privilege to pursue and capture the retreating English Army. They embarked for the Thames River and Fort Malden. Three miles below Fort Malden, Canada, Frederick, who had piloted Perry to meet the General now took over the wheel for him and started on the trail of the British. They arrived at the Thames River, October 5th, and there near Chatinan, at Arnold’s Mill, they overtook the fleeing forces and the Tecumseh war was fought. The famous chief of the Shawnees, Tecumseh, with two thousand of his men were caught. The warrior had a presentiment of his death and discarded his general’s uniform before the battle, dressing himself in his Indian deerskin. He was killed at the beginning of the battle and fell before his warriors.³⁵

In Dr. Frederick G. Williams’s medical ledger for 1837, the historical sketch of Dr. Williams includes a detail on the mutilation of Tecumseh’s body. The comment made by the offending officer suggests that Williams was an eyewitness and that he was indeed involved in the battle: “Frederick Granger Williams was pilot on the boat for General [Harrison] in the war against Tecumseh. When Tecumseh was killed an officer said I’ll have a raiser strap out of his hide and cut a two-inch strip off his back.”³⁶

After the victory, Williams was thought to have piloted Commodore Perry and General Harrison back to Buffalo. En route they stopped in Cleveland, where “they were entertained at a banquet while here, and the Masons of all this neighborhood met them in special session, out at the hospitable home of Judge Kingsbury.”³⁷

Being on familiar terms with Commodore Perry and General Harrison, he [Kingsbury] was frequently admitted into their councils, and his opinions were treated with respect. On the day preceding the battle of Lake Erie, while Commodore Perry was cruising in quest of the enemy, the Judge went on board the flag ship to pay his compliments to the Commodore, who in the course of conversation, asked him what he would do, if they should chance to fall in with the British fleet while he was on board? “What would I do,” replied the Judge. “Why sir, I would fight.”³⁸

Teaching School

Although peace was not formally declared until 1815, the war was at an end so far as Cleveland was directly concerned. Frederick G. Williams continued to work as a pilot on Lake Erie, transporting goods and passengers between Buffalo and Detroit. He also managed to teach school in Newburgh, tutoring Mary Carter, the daughter of Lorenzo Carter, the man who earlier had hosted dances at his home, attended by Frederick. “In Lorenzo Carter’s ‘Legor,’ a ponderous volume which has its first entry on December 18, 1808, and contains the record of several years, I find that in 1814 he ‘paid F. Williams for schooling $3.75’ for Mary’s tuition, but for how long a term is not stated. There are frequent entries for the tuition of Mary and Betsy.”³⁹

Marriage to Rebecca Swain, Move to Warrensville, Medical Practice

Frederick’s interests, diverse already, were soon to turn to marriage and medicine. It was on one of the lake crossings between Buffalo and Detroit that Williams met his future wife, Miss Rebecca Swain of Youngstown, New York, who had come to visit her married sister Sarah Swain Clark, then living in Wyandotte, Michigan. Williams called at the Clark home several times and, after a brief courtship, married Rebecca in December 1815,⁴⁰ possibly on Christmas day. The young couple went to live in the area of Warrensville, Ohio. Five years before Frederick married, his father sold him 161 acres of land in the Cleveland area known as Warrensville. The deed was transferred on April 30, 1810, at a cost listed at $402.00.⁴¹ The Municipal Archives contain a record of the first residents of Warrensville, which include Fred Williams.

Daniel Warren of New Hampshire, who settled first in Painesville in 1808 and later in Newburgh, purchased farm land in Warrensville in 1810 and, with his family, established the first homestead in the community. Warren’s second son, born in 1812, was the first white child born in the territory.

After Warren came James Prentiss, a soldier in the Revolutionary War, and his family; Asa Stiles of New York State; Jacob Russell of New York, whose sons were instrumental later in the founding of the Shaker colony; and Peleg Brown, Fred Williams, Benjamin Thorp, William Sickel, Josiah Abbott, Abraham S. Honey and Chester Risley.⁴²

Rather than devote his full attention to farming, however, Williams became interested in medicine, prompted in part by a physical breakdown he had sustained while clearing his land and by the death of his sister-in-law, Lovina Dibble Williams, due to childbirth complications.⁴³ His son Ezra wrote the following about his father’s health and his interest in botanical medicine:

My father, Frederick Granger Williams, was born in Suffield, Hartford Co., Conn. October 28th 1787, whose father was Wm Wheeler Williams of Conn. My mother, Rebecca Swain Williams, was born in Loyalsock, Northumberland County Pennsylvania August 3rd 1798, daughter of Isaac and Elizabeth Swain. I was born Nov. 17th 1823 in Warrensville, Cuyahoga co. Ohio, seven miles N. East of Cleveland where father cleared up a heavy timbered farm his father having emigrated to the western reserve in Ohio in 1797, father being ten years old when he came to Cleveland only one house there at that time. He labored very hard in cutting down heavy timbers and piling in heaps to burn to get rid of it. In doing this he broke down in health, also was called on a great deal to wait on the sick of the country round about, being a good mercy for the sick, and about this time the Thomsonian System of Practice came in vogue he was very much taken up with the simplicity of the theory and practice that he bought a Thomsonian Book and which gave him license to practice & made himself well acquainted with its theory and soon commenced practice on that system.⁴⁴

Lovina Dibble married William Wheeler Williams Jr. on Christmas day 1815 and died March 27, 1816.⁴⁵ Frederick would have been concerned for the welfare of his own wife as well, for Rebecca was also expecting. On September 20, 1816, Rebecca gave birth to their first child, Lovina Susan Williams (1816–1847), who was named after the recently deceased sister-in-law. Both the mother and the child were healthy, much to the relief of all concerned. The rest of their family, three more children, would also be born in Warrensville: Joseph Swain Williams (1819–1838), Lucy Eliza Williams (1821–1845), and Ezra Granger Williams (1823–1905).

Elected Official

In addition to his farm and medical practice, Frederick G. Williams took an interest in civic affairs and in 1816 was elected clerk of the newly formed civil organization of Warrensville, Ohio. He was re-elected three times, serving until 1823.⁴⁶ The clerk of a township had many responsibilities, which included keeping a record of all public transactions, maintaining the marks and brands of livestock, overseeing elections, and posting the annual financial account.

Establishment of the office of township clerk dates back to 1790, when the justices of the peace at their quarterly sessions were required by the territorial government to appoint a clerk for each township. That officer kept a record of the various marks and brands used by different live-stock owners, receiving 25 cents for each entry. He also kept an account of all stray animals found within his township and was required to advertise for their owners. For such services the clerk received 50 cents for each entry.

The establishment of the office was approved in October 1799 by the first legislature of the Northwest Territory, which met in Cincinnati.

After the establishment of the state legislature, that body expanded the office of township clerk, requiring the latter to keep records of all public transactions, newly-elected township officers, and roads and cart ways. The clerk was also authorized to administer oaths to all public officials.

Later, the clerk was charged with the care of the ballot box in his township and with the task of notifying the township trustees concerning the expiration of the term of any justice of the peace 60 days in advance.

The clerk posted a copy of the annual financial account of his township at the places of public election on the first Monday in April. The account was obtained from the township officers after their yearly settlement of township affairs.

With the establishment of each school district by the township trustees, the clerk entered the matter on record.⁴⁷

Civic Involvement of Frederick G. Williams in the Cleveland Area

Elected office⁴⁸

Clerk of Warrensville Township, November 1816 to April 1817

Clerk of Warrensville Township, April 1817 to April 1818

Clerk of Warrensville Township, April 1818 to April 1819

Clerk of Warrensville Township, April 1822 to April 1823

Petitions⁴⁹

March 3, 1823, Frederick G. Williams appointed to the Committee for Road in Newburgh

March 7, 1825, Petition of Frederick G. Williams and others for road alteration in Warrensville

June 6, 1825, Petition of Frederick G. Williams and others for road alteration in Warrensville

June 7, 1825, Petition of Frederick G. Williams and others for road alteration in Warrensville

Property Exchanges

While living in Warrensville, Frederick participated in a number of property transactions, which will be listed schematically for easy reference, beginning with the property he purchased from his father. Some of the transfers involved brothers and sisters and their spouses.

Date: April 30, 1810

Amount: $402

Place: Cleveland, Cuyahoga Co., Ohio

Grantor: William W. Williams of Cleveland, Ohio

Grantee: Frederick G. Williams of Cleveland, Ohio

Description: Township 7, Range 11, Lot 41 containing 161 acres.

Source: Deeds and Mortgages, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, vol. A-1, pp. 46–47.

Date: September 6, 1817

Amount: $10

Place: Cuyahoga Co., Ohio

Grantor: Frederick G. Williams and Rebecca, his wife, of Cuyahoga Co., Ohio

William W. Williams Jr. and Nancy, his wife, of Cuyahoga Co., Ohio

Amos Cahoon and Polly, his wife, of Cuyahoga Co., Ohio

Elijah Peets and Martha, his wife, of Portage Co., Ohio

Grantee: Noble Bates of Cuyahoga, Co., Ohio

Description: Township of Newburgh, part of Lot 464, containing 80 square rods.

Source: Deeds and Mortgages, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, vol. B-2, pp. 563–64.

Date: May 14, 1827

Amount: $95

Place: Warrensville, Cuyahoga Co., Ohio

Grantor: Frederick G. Williams and Rebecca, his wife, of Warrensville, Cuyahoga Co., Ohio

Grantee: Sylvester Carver of Warrensville, Cuyahoga Co., Ohio

Description: Township 7, Range 11, Lot 41 containing 20 acres.

Source: Deeds and Mortgages, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, vol. L-11, pp. 31–32.

Date: October 23, 1828

Amount: $20

Place: Warrensville, Cuyahoga Co., Ohio

Grantor: Frederick G. Williams and Rebecca, his wife, of Chardon, Geauga Co., Ohio

Grantee: Dewey B. Cook of Warrensville, Cuyahoga Co., Ohio

Description: Township 7, Range 11, part of Lot 41 containing ½ acre.

Source: Deeds and Mortgages, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, vol. G-7, pp. 443–44.

Date: April 7, 1832

Amount: $1,500

Place: Warrensville, Cuyahoga Co., Ohio

Grantor: Frederick G. Williams and Rebecca, his wife, of Kirtland, Geauga Co., Ohio

Grantee: Isaac More of Warrensville, Cuyahoga Co., Ohio

Description: Township 7, Range 11, Lot 41 containing 141 acres, except ½ acre sold to Mr. Cook, who sold to Isaac More.

Source: Deeds and Mortgages, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, vol. N-13, pp. 89–90.

This list of deeds allows us to see not only the value of the property (from $10 for 80 rods and $20 for ½ acre to $1,500 for 141 acres) but also where Frederick and Rebecca were living at the time of the sales. Thus we see that they moved from Warrensville, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, to Chardon and then to Kirtland, the last two townships both in Geauga County, Ohio.

Property Taxes Paid in Warrensville

Frederick paid taxes on 161 (sometimes listed at 160) acres of property in range 11, township 7, lot 41, which corresponded to Warrensville, Cuyahoga County, Ohio. The amount he paid decreased over the years, then went up before leveling off. In 1816, he paid $3.60; in 1817, $3.60; in 1818, $2.40; in 1819, $2.80; in 1820, $2.81; in 1821, $1.81; in 1822, $3.97; in 1823, $2.40; in 1824, $2.00; and in 1825, $2.40.⁵⁰

Beginning in 1826, both land taxes and personal property taxes were assessed, and the residents were now listed by township and not merely Cuyahoga County. Besides paying a property tax of $1.51 on 150 acres (assessed at a value of $303), Frederick paid $0.44 on his personal property of one horse, valued at $40, and six cattle, valued at $48.⁵¹ In 1827 and 1828, Frederick was listed for paying property taxes on only 140 acres (both years at $2.63) but nothing on personal property, suggesting that the Williamses had moved their residence elsewhere, together with their personal property of a horse and six cattle.⁵² This is partially confirmed in the deeds listed above, where in 1828 his residence is given as Chardon, Geauga, County. Curiously, in 1829 Frederick again paid taxes on his Warrensville land ($2.42) and on his Warrensville personal property of six cattle ($0.40), but minus the horse. From 1830 to 1834, although the family had moved to Kirtland by then and in 1832 sold the property by recorded deed to Isaac More, Frederick is still listed as the owner and therefore responsible to pay taxes on the Warrensville property of 140 acres: in 1830, $3.26; in 1831, $3.63; in 1832, $3.18; in 1833, $3.18; and in 1834, $3.17.⁵³

The Move to Chardon, Geauga County, Ohio

As noted, in 1828 Frederick G. and Rebecca Williams were residents of Chardon, the county seat of Geauga County, Ohio, according to the deed of sale of ½ acre of their property in Warrensville to Dewey B. Cook for $20 on October 23, 1828.⁵⁴ Their residence in Chardon is confirmed in the 1828 personal property taxes they paid there on one horse, with an assessed value of $40, and one head of cattle (most likely a milk cow), with an assessed value of $8, for which Frederick was required to pay a total tax of $0.40, and which the recorder noted was “Paid.”⁵⁵ A similar personal property tax was charged the Williamses in Chardon for the year 1829: one horse, with an assessed value of $40, and two cattle, assessed at $16.⁵⁶

Dr. Williams’s son Ezra, who would have been five years old in 1828, also noted the family’s residency in Chardon in an area called “Kings Row” prior to their move to Kirtland. Speaking of his father, Ezra stated, “He rapidly gained in popular favor [on his medical practice] and in about 1827 moved to Chardon in what was called Kings row, finally settled in Kirtland, Ohio.”⁵⁷

There is no record of a deed that lists Frederick G. Williams as the purchaser of property in Chardon, nor is there any tax record showing that he paid taxes on land or homes in that township. But since he did pay personal property taxes, the conclusion we must draw is that the Williamses rented a home or lived with another family (maybe friends or relatives) during their two-year stay in Chardon.⁵⁸ It is interesting to note that whatever arrangement was made, Frederick may have maintained some type of presence in Chardon, as evidenced by two incidents found in Joseph Smith’s history. The first occurred on Thursday, November 29, 1832, when the Prophet went to Chardon to visit his sisters Sophronia Smith Stoddard and Katherine Smith Salisbury and while there visited with Frederick G. Williams. Joseph returned to Kirtland the next day, Friday, November 30, 1832.

[29 November 1832 Thursday]

This day road from Kirtland to Chardon to see my Sister Sop[h]ronia and also ca[lled] to see my Sister Catherine [and fou]nd them [well] This evening Brother Frederic[k G. Williams] prophecyed that next spring I should go to the city of PittsBurg to establish a Bishopwrick and within one year I should go to the City of New York the Lord spare the life of thy servent Amen.

[30 November 1832 Friday]

This day retu[r]ned home to Kirtland found all well to the Joy and satisfaction of my soul on my return home stopped at Mr. Kings bore testimony to him and Family &c.⁵⁹

The second incident occurred on Tuesday, October 27, 1835, when the Prophet’s brother Don Carlos sent for Dr. Williams at Chardon to attend to his brother Samuel’s wife, who was about to deliver her firstborn child. “In the morning he was called to his Brother Samuel Smith’ to visit his wife [Mary Bailey], who was confined and in a dangerous situation. His brother Carlos went to Chardon after Dr. F. G. Williams.”⁶⁰

The Move to Kirtland, Geauga County, Ohio

The move by Frederick G. Williams and his family to Kirtland in 1830 is confirmed by a number of documents, including the 1830 U.S. Census.⁶¹ That same year, Dr. Williams also began paying personal property tax in Kirtland on his one horse, assessed at a value of $40, and on one cow, assessed at a value of $8, for a total tax due of $0.44.⁶² He bargained for a large tract of land jointly owned by Peter French and Isaac More, on which his name appears in the 1830 Kirtland tax map. Eventually, only More deeded his portion to Williams, in exchange for Frederick’s property in Warrensville. According to an 1878 account, Isaac More had moved to Kirtland in 1812, where he purchased property with Peter French.

He purchased, jointly with Peter French, a farm on the hill south of the Mormon temple, paying 19 shillings an acre therefore. The farm was bought for one hundred and five acres, and the arrangement between the purchasers was that fifty acres were to be measured off to French, leaving the balance, whatever it should be, to Moore, who, on measuring, afterwards, found he had seventy acres. He resided in Kirtland until about the year 1831, or until the settlement of the Mormons there, which rendered it to him an undesirable place of residence, and he removed to Warrensville, Cuyahoga county. There he remained some six years, thence moving to Mentor, where subsequently, he engaged in wine-making.⁶³

I will presently review in greater detail the purchase of the Williams Kirtland farm property.

In Kirtland, Dr. Williams would continue with his medical practice, which would continue to expand and bring him recognition, and he also engaged in farming. As we have noted, Frederick’s son Ezra (who would himself become a doctor) wrote a short biographical sketch of his father’s medical career, in which he distinguished between the “old school” allopathic physicians, who used toxic chemicals and performed bloodletting, and the botanical or Thomsonian doctors, who used herbs. Ezra wrote of his father’s practice:

At that time the General practice was calomel and bloodletting for everything which made great havoc with the people and consternation. So the people were glad to adopt a more simple treatment and one that would not be so serious to the constitution. He rapidly gained in popular favor and in about 1827 moved to Chardon in what was called Kings row, finally settled in Kirtland, Ohio. Here his practice increased so much so that his fame was known all over the country, and was kept constantly busy. Members of the old school physicians would call on him and stop over night and interest themselves late in the night discussing the theory and practice of medicine as he was always ready and anxious to gain all information possible and add any and all improvements and additions to the restricted practice of the Thomsonian System of practice. He was well liked by the old school (or allopath) physicians. He as well as others of the Thomsonians, by adding all known good remedies leaving out mercurial and other minerals, poisonous drugs, and bloodletting, gradually formulated the system called the Eclectic practice of medicine which is now so much esteemed above the old method and has caused a great change in theory and practice of the old style or system of practice.⁶⁴

Besides his prominent medical career and his farming, Frederick would later be elected a justice of the peace for Geauga County. But what would bring the greatest meaning to his life and eventually an even higher standing in the community was his conversion to the Church of Christ⁶⁵ in 1830 and his ordination as a counselor to the Prophet Joseph Smith in the First Presidency of the Church. The next section will feature his medical profession. The remainder of this biography will focus on Frederick G. Williams’s life as a Mormon and the effect his membership in the Church had on his immediate family and subsequent generations.