Page:Life of Isaiah V Williamson.djvu/109

Rh its life seemed flickering. The organization was barely kept alive through the courage and perseverance of three or four individuals. One of the villagers kept the cases of books at his house, and acted as librarian, with a trifling fee. But Williamson put new life into the enterprise by giving $5000 as an endowment fund, of which the interest was to be used in purchasing new books. This was made conditional upon the capital stock being increased to at least one hundred paid-up shares providing for the maintenance and incidental expenses of the Library. The result was that the organization took on a new and larger life. Public enthusiasm was aroused. A library building was erected four years later, to which Williamson contributed one-half the expense. At the time of the Library's centennial, in 1902, there were more than seven thousand volumes listed in its catalogue.

Williamson also had a part in the formation of the Bucks County Association, in 1876, in which Judge Edward M. Paxson, Amos Briggs, John O. James, Theodore C. Search, and John Stackhouse were officers of the first