Elisha Williams

Biography

Born in 1773 in Pomfret, Connecticut, Williams was orphaned as a child and taken into the care of a family friend. He read law under a judge in Litchfield, and was admitted to the New York bar in 1793, when he moved to the hamlet of Spencertown in what is today the Town of Austerlitz.[1]

He was a persuasive speaker, and his fame as a lawyer quickly spread both inside and outside New York. After marrying his legal guardian's daughter in 1795, he moved to Hudson in 1799. Two years later he was elected to first of nine terms in the New York State Assembly on the Federalist Party line.

It is likely that Williams had the house built, but it is not known exactly when. An 1801 map of the city does not show it but may not have included it since at the time it was outside the city limits. An 1816 map, copied from the earlier version, indicates a brick house at the location. It is believed he either had the house built or bought it around 1810. At that time its front, the south elevation, faced Union Turnpike (today NY 66), the nearest road.

Williams' legal and political career continued to flourish despite the general decline of the Federalists after the War of 1812. At New York's 1821 constitutional convention, he argued forcefully for his party against the extension of the franchise to unpropertied men, but was defeated. He remained in office for the rest of the decade, but began to focus increasingly on other projects, such as the establishment of the village of Waterloo in Seneca County near the Finger Lakes. After leaving office, his health in decline, he spent much of his time there but was still a legal resident of Hudson when he sold the estate to local farmer Richard Atwell in 1832, a year before his death.