Just before noon, Mr. Williams said that he must go. Then Laura must ask him if he wished to speak to the school.
“Yes, I do,” he answered grimly, and as he rose to his full height of six feet, Laura’s heart stood still. Desperately she wondered what she had done that was wrong.
With his head nearly touching the ceiling he stood silent a moment, to emphasize what he intended to say. Then he spoke.
“Whatever else you do, keep your feet warm.”
He smiled at them all, and again at Laura, and after shaking her hand warmly, he was gone. – Laura Ingalls Wilder, These Happy Golden Years, Chapter 9, “The Superintendent’s Visit”
This is one of my favorite passages from any “Little House” book. I just wish I knew more about the early life of Mr. Williams, the second Superintendent of Schools in Kingsbury County (Amos Whiting was first). I know a bit of what happened to Williams after he came to Dakota Territory, just not too much about his early life. Here’s what I do know:
George A. Williams was born in New York in April 1836. I haven’t yet pinned down his parents’ names or where he spent his childhood; there are just too many possibilities in the early censuses, and I’m still waiting for newspaper microfilm and other records I’ve ordered. The first known whereabouts for George is when he enlisted in the Union Army in Elmira (Chemung County) New York. He may have been from Elmira, but others who enlisted at the same time were from a number of surrounding counties, and while they were easy to find on the 1860 census, George Williams wasn’t.
George was 25 years old when he enlisted on May 6, 1861, to serve two years. He was mustered in as a private in Company K, 23rd New York Infantry on May 16. He mustered out with his company on Mar 23, 1863, after taking part in sixteen different battles in Virginia and Maryland, including the Battle of Bull Run, the Battle of Fredericksburg, and the Battle of Antietam, where over 12,000 Union troops were killed. The 23rd NY Infantry suffered its most losses at Antietam.
From after the Civil War until he showed up in De Smet, George Williams’ life is still a mystery to me. He supposedly had been a superintendent of schools “back east,” and that may have been in Wisconsin since Kingsbury County newspapers reported frequent visits to Wisconsin during his years in Dakota. He was married during this time, but was single when he came to De Smet. Williams first shows up on Kingsbury County records when filing on a tree claim and preemption in May 1882. Located in Section 22, Township 109, Range 57, his claims were ten miles southwest of De Smet in Mathews Township. Williams proved up on his preemption in December 1882 and his tree claim in August 1891.
In October 1882, Williams was nominated as the Republican candidate for Superintendent of Schools, to run against Democratic candidate Samuel O. Masters, County Surveyor and former teacher in Walnut Grove. Masters was also father of Genevieve Masters, Laura Ingalls’ rival in Walnut Grove and inspiration – along with Nellie Owens and Stella Gilbert – for the composite Nellie Oleson character in the “Little House” books. Williams won in the November election and departed for Wisconsin to spend the winter, returning in time to take office in March 1883, when new school law was implemented in Kingsbury County. He drew his first salary in April 1883, and was paid $63.00 per month for the 1883-1884 school year. His salary increased to $79.00 per month the following year. The superintendent’s duties included determining the necessity of schools, forming districts and boundaries, overseeing elections of school officers, visiting every school in the county at least once during the term (there were four terms per year and around 100 school districts in Kingsbury County at the time), testing and grading all teachers, apportioning tax money to the schools for payment of teachers and running of schools, being in charge of monthly teachers’ institutes, and compiling and reporting statistics to the Territorial Superintendent and the local newspapers. During his years as Superintendent, Mr. Williams kept an office in De Smet; it was usually a desk in the De Smet Leader office. He spent one day per week at this office, usually on Friday or Saturday.
The Superintendent had to run for office each year, and George Williams was defeated in 1887 by Eloise Stead, a teacher in Arlington. He then went into the drug business with Dr. Dickey of Iroquois. In 1891, Williams returned to De Smet to open a drugstore, but by year’s end, he was living in Esmond. George Williams married Jeannie Burleigh (14 years his junior) of Beadle County in 1892. The couple had no children.
After running a drug store in Aurora in 1893, Jeannie and George Williams moved to Brookings in 1894, purchasing a home on Third Street. Williams continued to run his drug store in Brookings for over ten years. In 1909 at age 73, he was admitted to the Battle Mountain Sanitarium in Hot Springs, South Dakota. The “Old Soldiers’ Home” was built in 1907 to care for disabled Union volunteer soldiers. It was not a long-term resident facility, but a place where veterans received brief intensive treatment for lingering health problems. Williams’ ailments included kidney and heart trouble as well as a double hernia. It is interesting to note that the Sanitarium records show that Williams was indeed 6 feet tall, just like Laura wrote in These Happy Golden Years.
George Williams was released after six months and he returned to Brookings, where he died in 1913. Jeannie Williams died in 1922.
