The Washington times., 1894-04-22
Mrs. Williams
Wild, Woird Sforu

see. says correspondent, that Mrs. Will
Jams Is dead, poor Mrs. Williams, the wife OF
Grants Attorney General. The press dis
patches brought US only few lines about 1t
all; but wonder whether hundreds OF US here
in Washington did not recall the wonderful.
weird career of this wonderful, weird woman.
| 1 remember to have heard Gen. Belknap say
that he saw, standing in the window of a
| house in Keokuk. beautiful girl, fair and
pink, singing beautifully; and it must have
| been about that time, for she was only Is,
that she ran away with man Of twice her
years and married him, and before she was
l6 she had a baby boy. And before long she
was divorced from the man. and one George
H. Williams, n promising young lawyer or a
judge of Iowa, secured or granted the di-
vorce.
Mrs. Williams q will call her that) disap-
peared somehow not long after. but turned
up again in Idaho, married again, and d.
vorced again before long. 1 think she met
Judge Williams there; certainly they became
the most intimate kind OF friends in Port
land, Oregon, soon after. Judge Williams
had come to the Senate, and Mrs. Williams
Qor am calling her that, you know used
to say that she would marry him; and she did.
The judge, during his Senatorial term, used
to live in fairly pretentious boarding house
in l street, opposite Franklin park, and
there OF Sunday evenings he would sing
psalms with the iackadaisical young women
who inhabited the place and read from the
Bible to them,
With his advent in the Cabinet, however, q
change came over the spirit Of his dreams.
He was married then, and to Mrs. Williams,
the most brilliant and beautiful woman Of
her time, twice divorced, but possessing the
spirit and beauty which characterized her
when General Belknap heard her sing, which
played havoc, doubtless, with the hearts Of
others-and doubtless caused her all her
trouble. The Williams house in Rhode Island
avenue, the one where Justice Horace Gray
used to live, which they are tearing down
now to make room for the new st. Matthew's
Church (and hardly another house in those
early days stood within dozen stones throw
this was the center of society and beauty OF
the Grant administration. Mrs. Williams
had her enemies. They talked bitterly about
her. But she held her own against them all,
more and more sought after apparently, more
and more beautiful and spirited. or all the
arms and necks Of all the ladies in Washing
ton at that time the neck and arms of Mrs.
Williams were said to be the most sweetly pink
and shapely; and it was said that the wife Of
the Attorney General was the only women
But before long the downfall began to come,
1 don't know why; perhaps the gossip began
to cause it, perhaps it was the question Of the
landaulet. an innocent thing, but one capable
of causing almost infinite trouble, especially
II handled by the old, virulent New York
Herald and a united opposition press. But
Grant was faithful to his friends, faithful to
thsat Iln f.1
for chief justice. The Judge was never con-
flrmed-never mind about the details; I
should have to ask George Gorham about
them. any way. The spirit of Mrs. Williams
was broken. She secluded herself, went to
Europe and mastered French and German in
two years (she always mastered everything
and everybody, and the judge lived here for
a couple of years, trying to sell his house,
and attending to a fairly growing law prac-
tice. But he went back to Portland later, and
there built up. and still enjoys, perhaps, the
largest practice on the coast north of San |
Francisco, a deserved thing, as he is admit |
tedly one OF the ablest lawyers In all that |
country.
His life was made unhappy and bitterer. I |
suppose, than before by the new weird life |
of his imperial mistress. She became inter- |
ested in Christian Science, or the faith cure, |
or something OF the sort; and for the past few |
years had in the parlors OF the beautiful Will |
ldUlS HOuse III 1OIlldLu, d MANSION MUCH
like the old home of the Williamses here in |
Washington. by the way, a class sometimes of
two or three hundred women and children |
who believe that their teacher, the former
famed society leader of the capital, was por-
forming miracles, was mending lame legs, |
and restoring sight and hearing, and even
keeping death away. Judge Williams never
He submitted because there was
no other way. But Mrs. Williams, there was
no escape for her. The spirit and imperial
activity Of her very nature compelled her to
do something as notable as this or worse. So
they lived together the Williamses, filling out
broken, desolate lives.
The baby boy of the first marriage grew to
be a man, or to resemble man in outward
appearance He fell in with gang OF thieves
once and stole watch, but he came to Wash
ington after his mother was the wife of the
Attorney General-I have heard Daniels, of
the Record and Pension Division, tell about
it-and said he was going to be different and
a good man. and Judge Williams secured his
appointment to place here. But before long
he fell in with an actress in Baltimore and
robbed her of her diamonds-it wasn't an ad-
vertising dodge in those days. either-and
had to lice. Doubtless the poor fellow is dead
now.
The woman who has jus. tasted herself to
leath in Portland was a woman of an exceed
nGly kind heart. In the first term OF the
Grant regime there was heavy defalcation
n the Treasury An employe was incar-
.erated two years in Jail. The wife OF this
nan went to the Attorney Generals wife to