Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1919-10-16
IN MEMORIAM

At the opening session of the Cir
cult Court in this city, Monday, Oc
tober 6, 1919, the committee appointed
at the Spring term Of Court, consist
ing of Messrs. D. D. Conway, Theo. w
Brazeau and E. C. Pors, reported upor
the deceased member Of the County
Bar, George L. Williams@which hac
been prepared by D. D. Conway as fol
lows:
The career of Geo. L. Williams is
highly interesting and honorable anC
we'll illustrates the opportunities O.
pen to all who live in the United
States.
George L. Williams was born at
Homer, Cortland County, New York,
May oath, 1848, and died at Grand
Rapids, Wisconsin, July 4th, 1919.
Until four years old he had as COM
plete use of his arms and legs as any
boy ever had. At that time the So
called brain fever and it's effects left
him crippled in his right side so badly
that although his right leg and arm
: bones grew to the normal length of a
six-foot man, yet they were without
muscle or strength, and he was oblig-
ed to use a crutch and crutches for
over sixty years.
His father, Orren Williams, with his
mother, Ann Williams, a brother, sis
ter and half brother, came to White
water, Wisconsin, in 1855, and his fa-
ther died there few months later and
his sister also before the winter snow
began to fall. His mother, an Eng
lish lady, taught school and sewed to
meet the bills, and his brothers and he
began to work and go to school and to
follow the moves necessarily made by
a young Methodist minister, half
brother with whom his mother and all
lived for the next four or five years.
The mother remarked farmer and
George went with her to live on farm
in the town of Bradford, Rock County,
remaining there until after the close
of the Civil War; where riding the lead
horse for reaping; driving a reaper
and reading all the town library books
kept at his step fathers house; which
included many histories, including Glib
bon's Rome; and going to district
school, he was, the while, laying deep
and broad that foundation upon which
to build structure of judicial strength
and acumen for which he was char
acterized later.
Just at the close of the Civil War
Barrett's Life of Lincoln" came out
and was sold only by subscription and
George L. with an old white horse
Kate" and an old side spring buggy
sanvassed the Rock County farmers,
selling hundred copies.
His brother, O. T., had gone to Mil
ton Academy and was boarding him
self and working to pay his way and
thither George L. went and joined in
the venture; his mother cooking up
bread, cake, chickens, meats, ETC., and
driving the same old horse some eigh-
teen miles once every week or two to
bring her boys cost of living within
their means. At Milton for some three
or four months of the first year under
Prof. Bond, Geo. L. practiced spen-
cerian penmanship three to five hours
every day, and acquired the skill and
knowledge which was so useful all
through his life and especially avail
able and applicable in that great case
of Brown VS.. Cohn, tried at Grand
Rapids, in which his cross-examination
of Professors Elwell and Toland, two
Chicago handwriting experts, won
one of his great victories.
The farm of his stepfather, Samuel
Harlow, was sold, and his mother and
George L. moved to Appleton where
George L. went into Lawrence College
graduating in 1874, in the class with
Rev. Eugene Updyke, D. D., Robert
Gamble, U. S. Senator from South Da-
kota, and Jacob Sims, great lawyer
of Sioux City, and others. The emf