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WILLIAMS

2089

WILLIS

other leading Puritans. From 1654 to 1658 Williams was governor of the colony. He died in March of 1684.

Williams, Samuel Wells, the historian of China, was born at Utica, N. Y., on Sept. 22, 1812. After studying at Rens-selaer Institute at Troy, he went to Canton in 1833 as a printer in the employ of the American Board of Foreign Missions. In 1853 he acted as interpreter to Commodore Perry's expedition, which opened Japan to the world. As secretary of legation at Pekin he was of great help in making the treaty of 1856 between China and the United States. In 1876 he became lecturer on Chinese at Yale College. He published several valuable Chinese dictionaries and textbooks, but is best known by The Middle Kingdom, which is held both in America and in Europe to be an authority on Chinese history, life and manners. Professor Williams died at New Haven, Conn., Feb. 17, 1884. Consult F. W. Williams Life of him.

Williams College, a Congregational college for men, is at Williamstown, Mass. It was founded as a free school in 1785 by the bequest of Ephraim Williams, a soldier of Massachusetts in the French and Indian War, who had been killed 30 years before near the head of Lake George. The school opened in 1791, and incorporated as a college in 1793. In 1806 a student of Williams, named Mills, held a prayer-meeting with some fellow-students that resulted years later in the founding of the American Board, — the first society in the United States for missions to pagan countries. In 1854 the graduates of the college erected a monument to Col. Williams at the spot where he fell, and in 1906 another was put up at Williams College itself to commemorate the students' meeting that has become known as the Haystack Prayer-Meeting. In 1836 Mark Hopkins (q. v.) of whom Garfield in effect said that he was a university in himself, became president, and during his administration the little college entered on a career of prosperity that has never ceased. Courses of study are arranged in the groups of language, philosophy and science. During the first year of the four-year courses the studies largely are required studies. Those of the remaining years are elective studies, but in each group the student must choose a set quantity of study in each group and a major course. There are 77 scholarships, one being a special prize. In 1911 the faculty numbered 57, the students 543 and the library 59,600 volumes. The productive funds amounted to $1,455,304, and the income was $170,555.

Will'iamsburg, Va., counts-seat of James City County and formerly the capital of Virginia, is about 50 miles southeast of Richmond and as far from the entrance to

Chesapeake Bay. It is built on high ground on the tongue of land between James and York Rivers. Here is the eastern insane asylum of the state, opened in 1773, the oldest institution of the kind in America. The Episcopal church was built in 1678. The town, which was named after William III, was ordered built by the Virginian general assembly in 1699, and in 1700 the seat of government was moved here from Jamestown. The capital was changed to Richmond in 1780. Williamsburg is noted as the seat of the College of William and Mary (q. v.), walls of which, dating from 1693, ^iH stand. Williamsburg, besides its wealth of history, is quite a progressive center of business. Population 2,500.

Will'iamsport, Pa., county-seat of Ly-coming County, on the west branch of the Susquehanna, 95 miles northwest of Harris-burg. The postoffice, city-hall, Williams-port Hospital, Home for the Friendless and the Masonic Temple are among the principal public buildings. The leading educational institutions are Dickinson Seminary, two parochial schools (R. C.), two commercial colleges, 14 public grade-schools and a high school. Of its public schools the city feels justly proud. Williamsport is the center of Pennsylvania's lumber-trade, and in the spring the west branch is filled with pine and hemlock logs. It has large and rapidly growing manufactures, the most prominent being woodworking machinery, furniture, wire-ropes, nails, band-instruments, radiators and power-transmission machinery. The city was settled in 1797. Population 31,860,

Will'iamstown, Mass., 5 miles west of North Adams and 40 east of Troy, N. Y., is on the Fitchburg (Boston and Maine) Railroad. It nestles among the famous Berkshire Hills, and is the seat of Williams College (q. v.). Population 5,013.

Willimantic (wtl'%~mdn't%k),Conn.9 a city in Windham County, at the junction of Willimantic and Natchaug Rivers, 35 miles from Hartford. Within the limits of the city the Willimantic falls 91 feet, and affords excellent waterpower. The important manufacturing industries are thread and silk mills, cotton-warp mills, a spool-factory, silk-machinery works, print-factories and foundry and machine shops. In the city are parochial and public schools, a high school, a public library containing about 6,000 volumes, Dunkirk Hall Library and a state normal school. Willimantic was incorporated as a borough in 1833, and chartered as a city in 1893. It has the service of the Central Vermont and New York, New Haven and Hartford railways. Population 11,230.

Wil'lis, Nathaniel Parker, was born at Portland, Me., Jan. 20, 1806. He graduated at Yale College in 1827, and in the same year published Poetical Sketches. He