Ephraim Williams

Early life

Ephraim Jr. was the eldest son of Ephraim Sr. (1691–1754) and Elizabeth Jackson Williams (d.1718). He was born in Newton, Massachusetts, and was raised by his maternal grandparents after his mother died giving birth to a second son, Thomas, in 1718. His family was influential in western Massachusetts; so influential, in fact, that they were often referred to as the "River Gods" (referencing the Connecticut River, the major waterway in the area).

In his youth, Ephraim Jr. was a sailor and travelled several times to Europe, visiting England, Holland and Spain.

Military service

In 1742, at age 27, he moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where his father had relocated, and purchased large tracts of land in the young settlement. He joined the militia and was commissioned captain.

In 1745, during King George's War (1745–1748), he was put in charge of building and defending Fort Massachusetts and the line of defences in western Connecticut and Massachusetts. He was absent when the fort was taken and destroyed by the French in August 1746. After the war ended, Williams spent considerable effort urging the settlement of new townships in the western portion of Massachusetts along the Hoosac River at the end of the 1740s. Many of the early settlers in this region, in addition to Williams himself, were soldiers stationed at Fort Massachusetts during the war.

However, within just a few years, Williams was again called into service as part of the French and Indian War (1754–1763). Williams, now a colonel, took part in William Johnson's expedition against Crown Point, New York. Williams led a regiment of ten companies. Among those companies were Burke's Rangers and Roger's Rangers. Among his aides was William Williams, a signer of the Declaration of Independence from Connecticut.

Williams was shot in the head and killed during an ambush by the French and their Indian allies in the Battle of Lake George on September 8, 1755, at the age of 40. Members of his regiment hid his body just after the battle to prevent it from being desecrated. They later buried Williams nearby. His body was disinterred in the early 20th century and moved to the chapel at Williams College. A stone etched with Williams' initials on it and the year of his death still stands at the original Lake George gravesite just across the street from a monument erected by Williams College alumni. The monument marks the site of the ambush, which was called the Bloody Morning Scout.

Legacy

Ephraim left his sizeable estate to support the founding of a free school on his land in western Massachusetts, on the condition that the town be named after him (Williamstown, Massachusetts), that the town be part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and that the free school be made on land he donated. The school was founded in 1791 and converted to a college, Williams College, in 1793.

Ebenezer Fitch, the first President of Williams College, wrote a biographical sketch of Ephraim Jr. in 1802. He described the college's benefactor as follows: "In his person, he was large and fleshy...His address was easy, and his manners pleasing and conciliating. Affable and facetious, he could make himself agreeable in all companies; and was very generally esteemed, respected, and beloved."

Ephraim Jr. also appears in an early version of "Yankee Doodle":

Brother Ephraim sold his Cow And bought him a Commission; And then he went to Canada To fight for the Nation; But when Ephraim he came home He proved an arrant Coward, He wouldn't fight the Frenchmen there For fear of being devour'd.

There are no known portraits of Ephraim Williams.