Williams was born on May 26, 1750 in Boston; son of Jonathan Williams, merchant, and Grace (Harris) Williams, daughter of Benjamin Franklin's sister, Anne; educated in Boston schools; in 1770 went to London to complete training and to make contacts under Franklin's tutelage; in 1776 joined Franklin in France and was immediately appointed by the commissioners of the Continental Congress to France as their agent at Nantes; became involved in a controversy between Silas Deane and Arthur Lee and resigned as agent, but remained in Europe engaged in various business ventures until Franklin returned home in 1785; married Marianne Alexander of Edinburgh, Scotland, on September 12, 1779; in 1796 became associate judge in the Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia; served at different times as secretary, councilor, and vice-president of the American Philosophical Society; scientific interests brought him into contact with Thomas Jefferson, who appointed him Inspector of fortifications and superintendent at West Point with the rank of major in 1801; resigned, 1803; reappointed in 1805 with the rank of lieutenant colonel of engineers; planned and supervised the construction of defenses of New York Harbor; resigned from army, July 31, 1812; in War of 1812 served as brevet brigadier general of New York Militia and on a committee in Philadelphia for preparing defenses for the Delaware River; elected to Congress in 1814 but died on May 16, 1815 before taking office.

Collection: The Henry Knox Papers.

Electronic reproduction. Marlborough, Wiltshire : AM, 2014. Digitized from a copy held by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History.

Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

American history module 1

United States > Old Northwest

AM (Publisher), digitiser.

Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, owner.