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BIOGRAPHICAL AND PORTRAIT CYCLOPEDIA

for disability and sent home. He afterwards sought to enlist, but was rejected on the same grounds on which he had been discharged that of physical disability. He was one of the first sixty-five thousand men who went fourth to sustain the life of the nation and to preserve an undivided country. WILLIAM J. WILLIAMS, a coal operator of Johnstown, is a son of William and Catherine (Pool) Williams, and was born September 1, 11852, at Camborne, Cornwall, England.     William Williams' father was a native of Camborne, and was reared there, and followed mining. In 1880 he came to the United States, locating at Lloydsville, this county, but later returned to his native land, where he died in 1887. He was married in 1832, in Crown Parish, to Catherine Pool, a daughter of William Pool. The grandfather of William Williams, on the paternal side of the family, was Robert Williams, a miner, although most of the family were farmers and millers, and also the proprietors of a china clay works in that country. To the marriage of William Williams and Catherine Pool were born but two children, of which the subject of this sketch is the elder. His brother's name is Walter, who was born in 1863, and is in the employ of his brother as a mine boss.     William J. Williams has a good practical education, obtained not through the medium of schools or text-books, but by travel and general reading. A youth of spirit, he went to work at the age of thirteen, cleaning tin as it came from the mines. Then for about eight or nine years, with his father, was engaged in the copper and tin mining business of his country, five of which they were engaged in trippeting or prospecting on their own per-

sonal account, and were very successful. In December, 1876, he set sail from Plymouth, England for South Africa, being under the employ of his government, which was building railroads in that section of the “Dark Continent.” He had opened the first tunnel (No. 2), having had a contract. This trip was an interesting one, and by Mr. Williams was made a great source of education; and he had an opportunity to observe many interesting things on the Madeira Islands, at St. Helena, St. John's and Cape Town, whence they went to Beuda West, three days and nights, to the scene of their labors at No. 2 tunnel on the Beuda West railroad. He remained there eight months, when he returned to England, and shortly afterwards came to the United States, making the trip across the Atlantic in seven days, seven hours and twenty minutes, the fastest time on record up to that date. After a brief period spent in visiting friends, he took a position with an iron ore company of Orbisonia, Huntingdon county, this State, and remained there five months; thence, after a stay of four years at Lloydsville, this county, he came in 1880 to Johnstown. He there entered the iron ore mines of the Cambria Iron company, at Minersville, and later was engaged at various other mines of the same company. During this period he was industriously engaged in study, preparing himself to pass the required examination for a mine foremanship. He was successful, and passed a very credible examination, and took a foremanship with the firm of Miller & Co., of Portage, this county. He remained there some time; then, after a short service rendered them, supervising their pumps at Burwellsdale, he was offered a superintendency by the Cambria Coal and Coke company, at Amsbry, this county, but, on account of a physical disability, was

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