Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1915-12-19
NOT FRENCH DAUPHIN
CLAIM OF ELEAZAR WILLIAMS
 HAS BEEN DESTROYED.
Romantic Story That for a Time Had Many Believers Is Now Almost Universally Acknowledged
 to Be Fiction.

Full of romance though the history
 of Wisconsin is, it contains no story
 more strange or fanciful than that of
 Eleazar Williams, the mysterious mis-
 sionary of the Green Bay Indians, who, l some threescore years ago startled
 Americans by his claim to being the
 lost dauphin of France. To Green | Bay, the historic fur-trade center,
 once the seat of the French regime in
 Wisconsin, this tale adds new touch
 of color and picturesqueness
 The one event of the French Reign | Of Terror" that created the profound
 est impression upon the popular mind | of the time was the execution of the Bourbon monarch, Louis XVI, and his | unhappy queen, Marie Antoinette The
 son of the royal pair, the dauphin of
 France, then lad of eight, was
 spared the guillotine, but was held for
 two years lonely prisoner in the
 tower of the Temple. In 1795, accord ing to history, he died there, the re-
 suit of ill treatment and neglect on
 the part of inhuman jailers. Even at
 the time of his death, however, rumors were current that he had escaped. Ad- herents of the Bourbons, it was said,
 had spirited the young prince away,
 and had substituted in his place
 child of humble origin, which had suf- fered martyrdom in silence until re- lieved by death.
 In 1S49 Eleazar Williams, then a
 man of over sixty years of age, an
 nounced from the wilds of northern Wisconsin that he was the lost dau- phin, that he was Louis XVII, that he
 was the hereditary king of the French. The story that he told was a marvel ous one. The friends who had rescued
 him from the Temple had carried him to North America, where they had left him in charge of a worthy Indian fam lily of the St. Regis tribe of Canada. At first his mind had been a blank, the result of i'll usage, but later he had happily recovered his faculties.
 In 1841, Prince de Joinyille, son of the
 reigning French king, Louis Philippe,
 while on a trip through the new world, had secretly visited him, and attempt
 ed to bribe him, with promise of a
 splendid establishment, to abdicate
 the crown of France. This he had
 scornfully rejected. for though in
 poverty and in exile, he would not
 sacrifice his honor."
 Williams story, published broad
 cast in the United States and France, was believed by thousands. Sympa-
 thetic journalists in all parts of North
 America took it up, and several we'll
 known volumes were written with it
 as background. More critical stu
 dents, however, denounced the entire
 tale as fiction.
 Williams actual life, though in
 reality romantic enough, was far
 from identifying him with the royal
 throne of France. He was of mixed
 white and Indian blood, his grand
 mother having been carried captive as child from the famous Deerf1eld,
 Massachusetts, massacre, to Canada,
 where she had later married among
 her captors Her grandson, the sub-
 ject of our sketch, had served the
 Americans as spy during the war of
 1872, and afterward lived among his
 tribesmen, first as Catholic, then as
 Congregationalist and later as an
 Episcopalian missionary. Coming to
 Wisconsin in 1921, he was instru-
 mental in bringing to the region about
 Green Bay, from New York, numbers
 of Oneida, Stockbridge, Brothertown and Munsee Indians. He apparently
 dreamed of establishing in the North
 west a new Christianized confederacy,
 with himself as it's dictator. He was an intelligent and ambitious charac- ter, but eccentric, untruthful and self centered. Above all, he was an ir-
 veterate poseur. When, in 1S4S, this interesting in- dividual set up his claim to the throne of France, his circumstantial story, his physical resemblance to the Bour- bon family, and the scars and birth marlb which he exhibited upon his body convinced many of his sincerity. Those who knew him best, however, either laughed him to scorn or indig- nantly repudiated him. Even his h. dian mother, whom he denied, de- nounced him as bad and untruthful man. Needless to say, he never as- cended the French throne, and in 1858. died in poverty and neglect. Many of his sermons and papers are pre- served in the collections of the Wis, | consin Historical society.
 couIdn't Diuest Dynamite.