California Biographies
Mendocino and Lake Counties, California
 
Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

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

Source:
History of Mendocino and Lake Counties, California
With Biographical Sketches
History by Aurelius O. Carpenter And Percy H. Millberry
Illustrated, Complete In One Volume
Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1914


WILLIAM WILLIAMSON. � Stock-raising and more recently dairying 
have formed the principal occupations of Mr. Williamson and by throwing 
into their pursuit his energies as well as sagacious supervision he has risen to a 
position of influence among the farmers of Mendocino county, his lifelong home 
and the center of his present increasing enterprises. The first representative 
of the Williamson family in California was Lindley Williamson, born in 
Pennsylvania, who crossed the plains to California at the time of the gold 
excitement, afterwards making several trips overland bringing cattle to the 
Sacramento valley. He became a pioneer of Round valley, where he was a 
stockman, and where he married Mary J. Lightfoot, a native of London, 
Canada. 

As a boy William Williamson lived on the ranch at the east end of Round 
valley, where he was born September 4, 1873, and where he learned the details 
connected with the raising of hogs, cattle and horses. Carefully trained to a 
knowledge of stock-raising, he was well qualified to embark in the undertaking 
with hope of success and after the death of his father he succeeded to the 
management of the old homestead, comprising four hundred and fifty acres 
of valley land, with practical intelligence and great energy he managed the 
property up to the death of his mother in 1903, clearing it of a heavy indebted- 
ness contracted in the lifetime of his father, after which the estate was 
divided among the four children. Since then he has owned and operated one 
hundred and sixty acres left to him by his mother and well adapted to the 
stock industry and the dairy business. 

Careful study of the dairy business convinced Mr. Williamson that his 
land was well adapted to that purpose, and accordingly in 1912 he embarked 
in the industry, while only a brief period has elapsed since he bought his 
herd of milk cows and established the business, already the results are prov- 
ing satisfactory and it is believed that continuing prosperity awaits his efforts 
in this direction. In order to have every facility for modern, sanitary dairying, 
he recently erected a large and substantial dairy barn, equipped with the 
latest conveniences and said to be the most complete of its kind in Round 
valley. After settling the estate he took a homestead in Trinity county, and 
purchasing some adjoining land he engaged in stock raising for five years. 
Though he has since sold this ranch he still has cattle running in that section, 
his brand being 88, which he established in 1888. Although he is still in the 
prime of life, already his success has been noteworthy. Thrift and industry 
have given him prestige among other farmers. Through unceasing labor he 
has risen to rank among the progressive, prosperous farmers of the valley. 
So closely has his attention been given to farming that, aside from voting the 
Democratic ticket, he has had no leisure for politics, nor has he identified 
himself with any fraternity with the exception of the Masonic Order. His 
family consists of his son, Joseph William, and Mrs. Williamson, whom .he 
married September 19, 1910, and who was formerly Miss Edna May Morgan. 
She was born near Salem, Ore., but was a resident of Round valley several 
years before her marriage.