Looking for George Williams

Oct 17, 2010

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I have been trying to learn more about George Williams, my fourth great-grandfather, and recently I got a little more help from Lynn, who knows a lot about the old churches of Bertie County, North Carolina. She gave me some additional clues about where George may have come from before he turned up in West Tennessee.

What now seems clear is that George Williams was a Baptist minister with roots in North Carolina before he became connected to Zion Baptist Church in Haywood County. He first shows up in the minutes of Holly Grove Baptist Church in Bertie County on Dec. 13, 1828, when he was listed as “Brother” George Williams. By early 1829, he was being referred to as an elder. In March 1833, Holly Grove chose him to serve as pastor for one year, and later that month he “accepted the call.”

That gives us a solid North Carolina trail for George in the late 1820s and early 1830s.

By November 1836, George was in Haywood County, Tennessee. According to Zion’s Early History, the church met in its new building on the Saturday before the third Lord’s Day in November 1836 and elected George Williams as pastor for the coming year. The minutes say Brother Leggett made the motion, Brother Rooks seconded it and Brother Outlaw was instructed to write Brother Williams to inform him that he had been chosen pastor of Zion Baptist Church and ask him to attend the next meeting. In 1838, he was again elected pastor, this time at a salary of $60 a year. ¹

So George’s path appears to run from Bertie County, North Carolina, to Haywood County, Tennessee, sometime between 1833 and 1836.

There are a few other clues that may help fill in the story, though I am not yet ready to call them certain. One Ancestry tree points to a George Williams who married Nancy Hampton in Rutherford County, North Carolina, on April 13, 1822. That could be my George Williams, especially since the 1850 census shows him living in Madison County, Tennessee, with a wife named Nancy. But until I see the original marriage record for myself, I am treating that as possible rather than proven.

The 1850 census does at least give us a firm place to find him later. It shows George Williams, age 53, living in District 11 of Madison County, Tennessee, in the Jackson area. His occupation was listed as Baptist minister. Living with him were Nancy, age 40, and Harriet A., age 17, who had been born in Tennessee. That means George had reached Tennessee by about 1833 at the latest if Harriet’s age and birthplace were reported correctly.

Another item from Zion’s Early History shows that in April 1848 George Williams wrote a three-page epistle to the church, reminding the congregation of preaching under the oak trees and urging prayer for the young people “that God would convert, prosper and keep them in heavenly places.” That suggests he remained an important figure in the life of the church even after his earliest years as pastor.

So while I still do not know who George Williams’s parents were, the outline of his life is becoming easier to see. He was in Bertie County, North Carolina, by 1828, serving Holly Grove Baptist Church by the early 1830s. By late 1836, he had become pastor of Zion Baptist Church in Haywood County. By 1850, he was living in Madison County and was still identified as a Baptist minister. That is more than I knew a few weeks ago, and it gives me a better path for figuring out where he came from and who came before him.