William Williams

I was not present for the vote that declared our independence, but I signed my name to it all the same. I am William Williams, son of a congressional pastor, born in Lebanon, Connecticut, in 1731. I studied at Harvard. I served in the French and Indian War, and what I saw soured me on British power. When I came home, I opened a shop and opened my eyes to the politics of liberty. When Oliver Wolcott fell ill in the summer of 76, I was sent to take his place in Congress. I arrived too late to vote, but not too late to stand. I added my name to the Declaration of Independence and took up the work of building what would come. After, I served on the committee to frame the Articles of Confederation, joined the Board of War, and gave both coin and conviction to the cause. After the loss at Brooklyn, I wrote to Governor Trumbull. Our affairs are truly in a critical situation, but far, I hope, from desperate. And in 1779, I gave $2,000 in hard coin for worthless paper money, thinking that if independence be established, I would be repaid. If not, the loss was of no account. In the Bitter Winter of 1780, when French troops arrived in Lebanon, I gave them my house and slept elsewhere. All small sacrifices for the cause of liberty. For someone who once prepared for a life of sermons, I was lucky to have found my true calling in service of a nation.