Ephraim Williams Ephraim Williams Jr . ( – September 8 , 1755 ) was a soldier from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was killed in the French and Indian War . He was the benefactor of Williams College , located in northwestern Massachusetts . The school ' s athletic programs , the Ephs ( rhymes with " chiefs " ) , are named after Williams . Life . Early life . Ephraim Jr . was the eldest son of Ephraim Sr . ( 1691 – 1754 ) and Elizabeth Jackson Williams ( d . 1718 ) . He was born in Newton , Massachusetts , and was raised by his maternal grandparents after his mother died giving birth to a second son , Thomas , in 1718 . His family was influential in western Massachusetts ; so influential , in fact , that they were often referred to as the " River Gods " ( referencing the Connecticut River , the major waterway in the area ) . In his youth , Ephraim Jr . was a sailor and travelled several times to Europe , visiting England , Holland and Spain . Military service . In 1742 , at age 27 , he moved to Stockbridge , Massachusetts , where his father had relocated , and purchased large tracts of land in the young settlement . He joined the militia and was commissioned captain . In 1745 , during King George ' s War ( 1745 – 1748 ) , he was put in charge of building and defending Fort Massachusetts and the line of defences in western Connecticut and Massachusetts . He was absent when the fort was taken and destroyed by the French in August 1746 . After the war ended , Williams spent considerable effort urging the settlement of new townships in the western portion of Massachusetts along the Hoosac River at the end of the 1740s . Many of the early settlers in this region , in addition to Williams himself , were soldiers stationed at Fort Massachusetts during the war . However , within just a few years , Williams was again called into service as part of the French and Indian War ( 1754 – 1763 ) . Williams , now a colonel , took part in William Johnson ' s expedition against Crown Point , New York . Williams led a regiment of ten companies . Among those companies were Burke ' s Rangers and Roger ' s Rangers . Among his aides was William Williams , a signer of the Declaration of Independence from Connecticut . Williams was shot in the head and killed during an ambush by the French and their Indian allies in the Battle of Lake George on September 8 , 1755 , at the age of 40 . Members of his regiment hid his body just after the battle to prevent it from being desecrated . They later buried Williams nearby . His body was disinterred in the early 20th century and moved to the chapel at Williams College . A stone etched with Williams ' initials on it and the year of his death still stands at the original Lake George gravesite just across the street from a monument erected by Williams College alumni . The monument marks the site of the ambush , which was called the Bloody Morning Scout . Legacy . Ephraim left his sizeable estate to support the founding of a free school on his land in western Massachusetts , on the condition that the town be named after him ( Williamstown , Massachusetts ) , that the town be part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and that the free school be made on land he donated . The school was founded in 1791 and converted to a college , Williams College , in 1793 . Ebenezer Fitch , the first President of Williams College , wrote a biographical sketch of Ephraim Jr . in 1802 . He described the college ' s benefactor as follows : " In his person , he was large and fleshy . . . His address was easy , and his manners pleasing and conciliating . Affable and facetious , he could make himself agreeable in all companies ; and was very generally esteemed , respected , and beloved . " Ephraim Jr . also appears in an early version of " Yankee Doodle " : There are no known portraits of Ephraim Williams .