My Genealogy Hound

L. J. Williamson, a farmer of Jones township, living on Section 19, is of English and German ancestry. The Williamsons of an early day were English and settled in Pennsylvania among its pioneer residents. Lewis Williamson, the father of our subject, was born in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, was a stone-mason by trade and worked at bridge work on the old national turnpike, which was the public highway from the east to the west. He was married in Pennsylvania to Miss Catherine Wise, a native of that state and of German lineage. His death occurred in Pennsylvania during the infancy of his son L. J., and the mother, surviving him, reared her family of three sons and five daughters. The sons were Thomas, Martin and L. J. Williamson. Leaving Pennsylvania, the mother removed to Ohio, settling in Guernsey county, and later resided successively in Muskingum, Athens and Columbia counties.

L. J. Williamson, who was born in Washington county, Pennsylvania, October 25, 1832, was a young lad at the time of his father’s death and with his mother went to Ohio, where the period of his minority was passed. He is a self-educated and self-made man and whatever success he has attained as the years have gone by is attributable entirely to his own labors. He soon came to realize how valuable are industry and perseverance in the acquirement of a competence. When sixteen years of age he learned the blacksmith’s trade, which he followed for two years. In 1852, when a young man of twenty years, he sought the business opportunities offered in Iowa, making his way first to Van Buren county and later residing in Marion county, prior to his arrival in Union county in 1856. After reaching this state he began the work of putting in sawmill machinery and operated a sawmill on present farm. After residing in Marion county for a time, he brought the sawmill to Union county and here engaged in cutting lumber for a number of years. He made investment in five hundred and twenty acres of land where he now resides, of which forty acres had been placed under the plow but there were no buildings upon it. Knowing fully that much arduous labor would be required to improve this property he at once began the task of preparing it for the plow and bringing the fields under cultivation. The land today bears little resemblance to the property which came into his possession so many years ago. There are now two good houses upon it, his own home and a tenant’s house, and there are also substantial barns and outbuildings, while the latest improved machinery has been used in carrying on the work of the fields. He performed the arduous task of breaking the land and when the work of plowing and harrowing was done he sowed the seed and in due time gathered abundant harvests. He also raised and fed stock but for the past nine years he has rented his land. He also opened up a quarry here and shipped rock and sand to Creston and other points and also shipped wood, doing a good business in these lines for a number of years. He had the only private side track on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad. His place is neat, his home comfortable, and he is enabled now to enjoy not only the necessities but also many of the luxuries of life.

Mr. Williamson was married first in Van Buren county, Iowa, in 1854, to Miss Amelia B. Douglas, a native of Ohio, who came to Iowa at an early day. She died here in 1874, leaving four children: Eva L., now the wife of Sylvester Carter, of Dallas, Oregon; Albert J., a resident farmer of Jefferson county, Iowa; Olive, the wife of Charles Clarke, who is living at Sterling, Colorado; and Horace E., whose home is in Sheridan, Wyoming There were also two children of that marriage now deceased: Frank Ernest, who died when about five months old; and one who died in infancy in Afton.

In Afton in the fall of 1877 Mr. Williamson was married to Mrs. Sarah Emeline Allen, a native of Ohio, who removed westward to Wisconsin in her childhood days and was there reared. She was a daughter of Jacob Roudebush, who died in Ohio, after which the widow and daughter joined her brother in Wisconsin. Mrs. Williamson was married first to a Mr. Holdren, and after his death became the wife of Mr. Allen, with whom she came to Iowa, where her husband died. Mrs. Williamson had two children by her first marriage, Anna Elizabeth and Ida Adelia Holdren, and by her second marriage had a daughter, Jennie Allen, now the wife of Marcus E. Collier, a merchant of Augusta, Arkansas. By the last marriage of Mr. Williamson there was one son, Leroy, who died at the age of four years.

Politically Mr. Williamson was a republican. He cast his first presidential ballot for John C. Fremont. He voted for Lincoln, Grant, Hayes and Garfield but since 1899 has been a Bryan democrat. He is ever fearless in support of his honest convictions and his position is never an equivocal one. He was elected and served as justice of the peace and has been a delegate to county and state conventions. He takes an active part in local politics and earnestly champions the cause of any candidate whom he deems will prove a capable official He is numbered among Iowa’s early pioneer settlers, having lived within its borders for fifty-five years and in Union county for nearly a half century. He has seen the building of its towns and its railroads, the reclamation of its wild lands and the establishment of its business interests until Union county, like other sections of the state, is the center of an advanced civilization.

At all times Mr. Williamson has been loyal and progressive in citizenship, proved his devotion to his country when in 1862 he enlisted at Afton as a member of Company H, Twenty-ninth Iowa Volunteer Infantry. With that command he went to the front and later was made hospital steward, serving in that capacity until the close of the war, in Alabama, Louisiana and Texas. He was then honorably discharged at New Orleans in August, 1865. He had participated in the battles of Helena, Little Rock, Jenkin’s Ferry, Mobile, Spanish Fort and Fort Blakely and is now a member of the Grand Army Post at Afton, thus maintaining pleasant relations with his comrades who wore the blue and fought for the preservation of the Union in the south. He made a creditable military record and an equally creditable one in business, and thus the salient features of his life history are such as commend him to the confidence, trust and good will of his fellow men.