The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1890-09-14
WHAT A BOY SAW.
A Famous Trial of the Electric
Telegraph.
'IRsT PACIFIC COAST MASON.
Mr.. Henry r. Williams In . Reminiscent
Vein Tells Of Some Notable
Happenings.

pavement, piece of which he Is laying
Tor the electric railway on Second street,
near Madison avenue. Mr.. Williams is
now 81 years of age, but time has touched
him so lightly, he is so vigorous. that he
would be taken for a well-preserved man
ten years younger. Last night. in talking
to PosT-INTELLIGENcER reporter, he re-
lated several interesting incidents touching
events now famous.
Mr.. Williams. who was born Virginian,
passed his boyhood in Washington City.
Before he come of age be started for the
Pacific coast with the hardy Forty-niners,
and reached San Francisco on his 21st
birthday. His travelling companion was
Mr.. Levi Slowell, also of Washington City,
who brought from the District OF Columbia
the charter OF the first Masonic lodge that
was organized in San Francisco. and prob
ably on the Pacific coast. The lodge was
formed from Masons who had already
come, but Mr.. Williams was the first
Mason initiated into this first lodge, and
he is. therefore, known as the father of
Masonry on the Coast. This fact has
brought him into great prominence among
the Masons, not only in the West, but all
through the country.
Mr.. Williams is carpenter by trade,
and he himself built the first Masonic hall
in San Francisco in which this lodge used
to meet. He also made the set of tools used
III their ceremonies. In speaking of the
event last night he said "They found in
beginning the work of the lodge that not
one of the members had a Bible with him,
and you know we must have Bible in our
rites. l had already made the square
and other tools, as have told
you; and then learning that
Bible was wanted, fshed one out of my
trunk. 1t had been given me as Sunday.
school present a number of years before.
On that Bible took my oath, and the
same book was used to administer the
oaths to most of the early Masons of that
time. The volume with the tools are now
in possession of the grand lodge, and are
kept as curiosities and relics in glass case.
OF course no money would buy Them"
Now Mr.. Williams is Mason of the
thirty-second degree.
Another interesting "reminiscences which
he recalled was connected with the estab-
lishment of the electric telegraph. When
Mr.. Williams was boy in his early teens,
in 1912. Professor s. r. B. Morse, the in.
ventor of the telegraph, was before congress,
urging that body to appropriate $500 to
stretch wire over the thirty mine miles
from Washington to Baltimore. In order
to persuade the senators of the practicability
of his invention he gave trial of his in
strument for them. The place selected was
an ante-room in the north of what is now
the supreme court, but which in that day,
before the wings of the capitol had been
added, was the Senate chamber. The
senators, among them the leading men of
that day, Benton, Calhoun, Clay and the
rest were gathered in this ante-room; and
Young Williams, with a school friend who
he thinks was Randolph Benton. son of
the senator, slipped in unnotced. The
two boys watched the succe ssful expert.
ment with the instrument with
a wire stretched to the general
postotfice building half a mile away at the
corner OF + and Seventh streets Mr..
Williams says he can still remember the
objections urged. that although the tele-
graph gave astonishing results over half
mile of wire. still it was almost absurds to
think that it would be successful over such
long distance as thirty-nine miles, land
it Is q fact" continued Mr.. Williams,
that congress hesitated for long time
before granting the money for the line.
Furthermore it is q strange coincidence
that in 1871 / made trip east by way of
the Isthmus. and reached New York on
the steamer June g. | had intended to go
on TO Washington the next morning but
on reading my paper at break last / found
that on that very dav a monument was to
ne unveiled to Professor Morse in Central
Park. The recollection of the scene in the
Senate anteroom so MANY years before in
duced me to STAY over TO the ceremonies
In the evening after the unveiling q recep-
ton was held in The Academy of Music
and il was attended bv crowd as large "a
any that had ever gathered i'm New York.
The governor Of New York and the COVER
nor OF Mas~ach usetts the MAYORS of Bos-
ton and of New York CITY, and many other
diS,inguishei men we're there.
81 remember that re O'Clock with the
Original instrument. which was connected
q n all the wiz. in the United States.
4 afessor morse sent ont the famous mes
sage. Greeting ard thanks 20 ths telegraph
fraternity throughout the land Cory Co
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