Santa Barbara County Biographies

MRS. JULIA F. WILLIAMS

Submitted by Peggy Hooper

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


MRS. JULIA F. WILLIAMS, who for twenty-live years has faithfully served 
the light house department in discharging her duty at the light-house on Santa 
Barbara Point, like the wise virgins with lamps always filled and trimmed ready to 
light at the appointed time, was born on Campo Bello Island, New Brunswick, July 
12, 1826. She passed her childhood at Eastport, Maine, was married there to Albert J. 
Williams, and she and her husband resided at Waterville, Maine. Her husband came to 
California in 1849, and she followed him in 1852, coming by the Isthmus of Panama, and 
arriving in San Francisco, February 22, 1853. The trip up from Panama was fraught with 
much discomfort, as ship-fever was among the passengers and there were seventy-five 
deaths and burials at sea. Mr. and Mrs. Williams lived in San Francisco until 1856, 
when they came to Santa Barbara. The light-house was then being built, and as soon 
as it was finished Mr. Williams received the appointment of keeper, from President 
Franklin Pierce, and the lamp was first lighted December 19, 1856. In 1857 there 
was a severe earthquake which shook the stone light-house, rattled the blinds, threw 
the chimney, from the lamps, and even the earth could be seen to quake. On December 
25, 1857, Mrs. Williams gave a Christmas dinner at the light-house to all the American 
families in town. About thirty persons were present. After dinner they played base-ball, 
and at midnight sang "Home, Sweet Home," and withdrew. In 1860 Mr. Williams was 
superseded, and in February, 1865, Mrs. Williams received the appointment from 
Commodore Watson, light-house inspector at San Francisco, which was confirmed at 
Washington. Mrs. Williams was the first woman appointed light-house keeper in Cali- 
fornia and is now the oldest incumbent in the light-house service of the State. For twenty- 
five years she has rendered most faithful service, tilling and trimming her own lamps. 
With the exception of three weeks, when ill, she has lighted the lamp at sunset, changed 
it at midnight, never retiring until that duty was performed, and extinguishing the lamp 
at sunrise. She keeps her own books, recording each day the amount of oil used, hours 
the lamp burned and the condition of the weather, making monthly, quarterly and 
annual reports. Now, in her sixty-fourth year, she is still regular in the discharge of 
her duty. 

History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California  - by 
C.M. Gidney, Benjamin Brooks, Edwin M. Sheridan, Vol I, II.  -Lewis Publ. Co., 
Chicago, 1917.