Her father was Judge S. B. Williams. Her parents, who were abolitionists, moved the family to Kansas Territory in her youth, to join the fight against the spread of slavery to Kansas. After the Civil War, she attended the Seminary for Young Ladies in Lexington, Massachusetts, where the artist James Wells Champney was her drawing instructor. She completed her education at Vassar College, where she received her A.B. in 1869, a member of the second class of Vassar graduates.