Colonel Samuel J. Williams.

From the history of Delaware County, Indiana.

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Col. Samuel J. Williams, who was killed in the late war while leading his regiment, the Nineteenth Indiana, in the battle of the Wilderness. Col. Williams was born in Montgomery county, Va., and while quite young, was brought by his parents to Delaware county, Ind., where he grew to manhood. Reared on a farm, his early educational training embraced the studies usually taught in the common schools of that period, but he obtained his principal knowledge of books by private study and wide reading after attaining his majority. At the early age of eighteen, he was united in marriage with Lorena Davis, who at that time was but seventeen years old, to which union one child, Lorena, wife of Luther Harris, of Muncie, was born. Mrs. Williams dying.

Col. Williams afterward, when twenty-two years of age, was united in marriage to Miss Rebecca Shroyer of Delaware county, who bore him five children, the subject of this mention being the oldest in point of birth. The next oldest child, Parthena, was born in 1854 and married W. P. Dunkle, a carpenter and builder of Selma; Mary E., was born in 1856, married A. C. Martin, and is the mother of six children, five of whom are living; her husband died in January, 1891; Samuel J., the next in order of birth, is general freight agent of the M. , K. & T. R. R. , with headquarters at Parsons, Kansas. The youngest member of the family, Cassius, was born in i860, and departed this life in the year 1874.

In 1855 Col. Williams located in the town of Selma after the completion of the railroad, and engaged in the warehouse and stock shipping business, continuing the same until the breaking out of the great rebellion, when he recruited company K, Nineteenth Indiana volunteers, and entered the service of the country as captain of the same. For gallant and meritorious conduct en a number of different battle fields, he passed through different grades of  promotion, including that of major and lieutenant colonel, and finally became colonel of the Nineteenth, and as such fell, as already noted, at the head of his men in the battle of the Wilderness.

Col. Williams was a brave and gallant soldier, and m the civil walks of life was lujnorrd and espected by all who knew him. Williams post. No. 78, G. A. R. , of Muncie, Ind., was named in his honor, also
Col. S. J. Williams post. No. 267,0. A. K., of  Selma, Ind. He was an active member of the Masonic and Odd Fellows fraternities, and originally supported the democratic party, casting his first presidential ballot for Franklin Pierce. He was always opposed to the institution of slavery, however, in consequence of which he changed his political views and became a republican on the organization of that party, and supported its principles until his death.