Sacramento Valley Biographies

Mrs. Sarah W. Williams

Transcribed and submitted by Sally Kaleta, March 2009

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

            Mrs. Sarah W. Williams. Equally important with the husbands,
fathers, sons, and brothers as factors in the upbuilding of the west, are
those women who became pioneers and shared the hardships and dangers of the
beginning of the civilization of a new commonwealth, and gave the influence
of their up-right lives, conscientious fulfillment of duty and uncomplaining
courage to the characters which laid the foundation of this Pacific
statehood. Prominent among this countless number is Mrs. Sarah W. Williams,
a pioneer of Colusa county, and a woman of rare worth and ability, whose
friends hold her in high esteem for the qualities of her womanhood; her
neighbors for her citizenship; and her children for the unspeakable
qualities of a noble and unselfish mother-hood.
           In maidenhood, Mrs. Williams was Sarah W. Cary, the descendant of
an old English family, which in the time of Edward the First was represented
by Adam De Karry, who was Lord of Castle Karry in Somerset, his coat of arms
(Argentum) there white roses on a bend sable, crest, a swan, and the motto
Virtute excerptae. William and John Cary represented County Devon in
Parliament during the reign of Edward the Third, John Cary being made a
Baron of Exchequer by Richard the Second. His son, Robert Cary, succeeded to
his honorable title and estates. A legend in regard to the valor of Sir
Robert Cary is told in the history of the reign of Henry the Fifth, given as
follows: "In the beginning of the reign of Henry the Fifth a certain
knight-errant of Aragon, having passed through divers countries and
performed many feats of arms to his high commendation, arrived in England,
where he challenged any man of his rank and quality to make trial of his
valor and skill in arms. This challenge Sir Robert Cary accepted, between
whom a cruel encounter and a long and doubtful combat was waged in
Smithfield, London. But at length this noble champion vanquished the
presumptuous Aragonais, for which Henry the Fifth restored unto him a good
part of his father's land, which for his loyalty to Richard the Second, had
been taken from him by the former sovereign. He also authorized him to wear
the arms of the Knight of Aragon, which the noble posterity of this
gentleman continue to wear, for according to the laws of heraldry whosoever
in the field fairly conquers his adversary may justify the wearing of his
arms." Sir William Cary, a grandson of Sir Robert, fell in the Battle of
Tewksbury, 1471, under the banner of Lancaster. Lucius Cary was viscount
Falkland, chancellor of the Exchequer of Charles the First, the greatest
statesman of his day, who came to his death on the battlefield of Newbury.
Other honors came to the family, a son of Sir Henry Cary, Robert by name,
being elected to go to Scotland and wait upon James the First, who after the
death of Mary of England, became king of that country, which information Sir
Robert carried north. They were always extensive land owners, having as well
as English estates large landed interests in County Donegal, Ireland, which
had been granted to various branches of the family for meritor-ious
services. John Cary, the ancestor and progenitor of the family on this side
of the water, came from the vicinity of the city of Bristol, in
Somersetshire, England, to the Plymouth Colony in 1634. He was one of the
original settlers and proprietors of the Duxbury and Bridgewater colonies,
where he married Elizabeth Godfrey, the daughter of Francis Godfrey, one of
the first settlers of Bridgewater. Their son, Francis Cary, born in
Bridgewater in 1648, married Hannah, daughter of William Brit, in 1676.
Ephraim Cary, born in Bridgewater, Mass., married Hannah Waldo, in 1709,
their son, Daniel, born in the same place in 1716 marrying Martha, daughter
of John Cary. Following the example of his early ancestor, Daniel Cary
removed to Morris County, N. J., where he became an extensive farmer. He
reared a family of children, of whom Lewis Cary, born in Morris county, N.
J., in 1742, bought land in 1777 in Drakesville, same state, where his death
occurred in 1817. In his family was a son Aaron, who in young manhood
married Phoebe Thompson, a native of Mendham, N. J., her father, Jacob
Thompson, being a farmer and a native of the same place, where his death
occurred. Mrs. Cary died in Indiana in 1837. Of her family of children Sarah
W. died at the age of nineteen years; Lucilla became the wife of Ansel
Dickinson and died in Tacoma, Wash., in November 1904, in her ninety-first
year; Hannah died at the age of three years; Stephen T., a merchant, died in
Council Bluffs, Iowa, in 1855; Lewis came across the plains to California in
1849 and died in Colusa, January 31, 1889; Hannah married Truman S. Clark
and came to California in 1852, they making their home for the past thirty
years in San Francisco; Jane W., married Dr. James Howard and came to
California in 1858, her death occurring September 4, 1893; Jacob T. died in
youth; and Sarah W. is the personal subject of this review.
          Born January 27, 1832, in Bucyrus, Ohio, where her father had
removed to in 1828, Sarah W. Cary was the youngest in a large family of
children. She was reared in the states of Ohio and Indiana, her parents
removing to the latter state and locating in Greenfield, La Grange county,
in her childhood. In 1858, she came with her sister, Jane W., to California,
making the journey by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and upon their arrival
they located in Colusa, where, March 13, 1860, she married W. H. Williams.
In the same month she came to make her home at Williams, which consisted
then of broad prairie lands and no houses but their own. This was burned
down a little later and was rebuilt of brick hauled from Marysville, the new
house serving as a hotel until the erection of another brick building. In
July, 1876, the railroad was put through and the town of Williams was laid
out and founded. Mrs. Williams recalls during the early days before the
levees were built, a five mile stretch of water between Williams and Colusa,
which passage had to be made in a boat at the time of high water. Mrs.
Williams has spent her entire life since her location here in this
community, where she now owns twenty-eight hundred acres of land within a
couple of miles of the town on the east. This property is entirely devoted
to the raising of grain. She has three children living, namely: Harriet May,
who is the wife of J. R. Moody, a contracting painter of Williams; Lulu, the
wife of S. H. Callen, a publisher and postmaster of Williams, editing the
Williams' Farmer; and Ella, the wife of Harry W. Manor, an extensive farmer
located six miles east of Williams. Her second child, Laura, died at the age
of four years. Mrs. Williams has at all times been especially liberal in her
support of the various benevolent undertakings in the Presbyterian Church.

"History of the State of California and Biographical Record of the
Sacramento Valley, California," J. M. Guinn, The Chapman Publishing Co.,
Chicago, 1906, Pages 349-350.