Williams College - Gulielmensian Yearbook (Williamstown, MA)

Page 28 text:

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Hbreface. T is a painful nzonzenf LZ'ZU6l7'Zl7'l'lg the rise of fhe IJlll'l'6l7'7l. The crash and bang of the overture before the fool-lzlg'lcfs,' the hunz of the expeclanl andienceg lhe ralflrrzg of seats in the houseg the hoarse 'voice of the stage carpenier, all conlr1'buz'e lo the anxrebv of a slight figure nervonslgv f07l7rlfZ'7'lg' the nzonzenzfs before the lasf bell. She is no debufanle. lf fs not her khrsf or even her lhrrd season, buf ll fs her-jirsl appearance for a long twelve rnonlhs, and she has reason Zo be anxious. Changed, she hnows she has, fn rnargv ways. Harder is rl eoergv year lo sustain anew role which will nzosoe the pens of unfrrendbv cr1'f1'cs to praise and refarn her pas! popularly. Will she succeed .P Ah, rf she could bul know now ! One flung' above all others grves sleadrness lo her nerfves and firnzness fo her lzps, she has clone her best. The full crescendo wrflz nfs roar and boonz is a thing of fhe paslg the grand finale ends,- flze lasz' bell is rungg lhe curfain surges upward. fBul.furfher we cannol gog would ihal we could. THE EDITORS.

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'Qlllilliamstown jfrcc School, 1791-'93. secondary Williams family were being born and ...., R GB?-4 , .3-5, 2 CL. EPHRAIM WILLIAMS was a bachelor. He T had encountered in his childhood some ofthe sin- isterinfluences usually derivable from the genus pi ,M b I step-mother. His own mother died April 12, 1718, but a few days after giving birth to her .-bi c onlyother child,Thomas,when Ephraim was just i' turned four years old. The father married again in thirteen months, and the maternal grand- . rw father, Abraham jackson, took the two boys to , his own home and brought them up, while a bred in the immediate neighborhood. There came to be seven children in the new family. The environment, accordingly, of the two boys was abnormal. The grandfather jackson was the son of the first permanent settler in what came to be called Newton, on the Charles river, Cambridge and Watertown being the adjoining and closely associated villages. He had a large family of his own, was much in the public business, and for twelve years certainly was a Selectman and also one the first School Committee in Newton. He made his will in january, 1739, and died eighteen months thereafter, being then eighty-tive years old, when Ephraim Williams was not quite twenty-five and Thomas not quite twenty-one, and he bequeathed .1-lzoo to these grandsons, saying in that connection in his will that he had already spent considerable sums upon their bringing up and education. Two important features of the childhood and youth of Ephraim Wil- liams are plainly enough to be discerned at this late day, even in the absence of all direct and contemporary testimony. First, his early school education, though considerable, was neither thorough nor extended. ' This is proven directly by his manuscripts still extant, mostly letters, of which there are twelve or fourteen of some length, besides muster-rolls and money-accounts with the Province of Massachusetts. These letters dis- play, without exception, unusual insight into personal character, good sense as to the then existing relations of things, more or less of humor, 9