William D., his eldest son, entered Williams College, in 1800; but finished his studies at Brown University, R. I., where he was graduated in 1804. As his father was a farmer in moderate circumstances, and himself the eldest of eight children, he was under the necessity of teaching a school several winters, to defray his college expenses. He read law with Hon. S. F. Dickinson of Amherst, till the spring of 1807, when he took up his residence in Bangor, Me., where he completed his professional studies with J. McGaw, Esq., being admitted to the bar in November of that year. Jan. 14, 1808, he was commissioned by Gov. Sullivan Attorney for the county of Hancock, an office held by him about eight years, when the county was divided. In 1816, he was elected to the Senate of Massachusetts, Maine being then a part of the Commonwealth; and received successive elections, till the separation in 1820. Though as a political man, his sentiments were of a democratic character, adverse to the majority in each of the legislative branches, he was Chairman of the Committee of Eastern Lands, three years. He was President of the first Senate in the new state of Maine; and the appointment of Gov. King as a Commissioner on the Spanish Claims, brought him into the Executive Chair, about six months of the political year. In the meantime, he was elected a Member of Congress. After he left the field of legislation he was appointed a Judge of Probate for his county, a Justice of Peace through the state, and President of Bangor Bank.
Judge Williamson was thrice married. He was first connected in marriage with J. M. Rice, an orphan, the niece of Gen. Montague of Amherst, whose home was hers. Five children were the fruits of this marriage, one of whom, an only son, a promising youth, died in 1832, at the close of his Junior year in Bowdoin College. His second wife was the eldest daughter of Judge Phinehas White of Putney, Vt., and his third was the only surviving daughter of the late E. Emerson, Esq., York, Me.
Judge Williamson was fond of literary pursuits generally, but particularly of historical research. He wrote and published a number of articles on various subjects, in different periodicals. His great work, however, which cost him many years of labor, was his History of Maine, in two large octavo volumes. He died May 27, 1846.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] His parents' residence at that time was in Boston.
[32] Judge Benjamin Lynde was on the bench about the same length of time, from 1712 to 1744.
[33] See Prince's Annals, 101.—Purchas' Pilgrims, B. X. chap. 4.—Vol VIII. Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 229.
THE FATHERS OF NEW ENGLAND.
"They [the Fathers of N. E.] were mostly men of good estates and families, of liberal education, and of large experience; but they chiefly excelled in piety to God, in zeal for the purity of his worship, reverence for his glorious name, and strict observance of his holy Sabbaths; in their respect and maintenance of an unblemished ministry; the spread of knowledge, learning, good order, and quiet through the land, a reign of righteousness, and the welfare of this people; and the making and executing wholesome laws for all these blessed ends."—Rev. Thomas Prince's Election Sermon, 1730.