and foreign shrubs and by maples, elms, pines and arbor vitae, and “Haystack Monument” in this park marks the place where Samuel John Mills (1783–1818), in 1806, held the prayer meeting which was the forerunner of the American foreign missionary movement. Williamstown village is best known as the seat of Williams College, chartered in 1793 as a successor to a “free school” in Williamstown (chartered in 1785 and endowed by a bequest of Colonel Ephraim Williams). Besides recitation and residence halls, it has the Lawrence Hall Library (1846), containing (1910) 68,000 volumes, the Thompson Memorial Chapel (1904), the Lasell Gymnasium (1886), an infirmary (1895), the Hopkins Observatory (1837) and the Field Memorial Observatory (1882), the Thompson Chemical Laboratory (1892), the Thompson Biological Laboratory (1893) and the Thompson Physical Laboratory (1893). In 1910 the college had 59 instructors and 537 students. The fourth president of the college was Mark Hopkins (q.v.), and one of its most distinguished alumni was James A. Garfield, president of the United States, whose son, Harry Augustus Garfield (b. 1863), became president of the college in 1908.
The principal manufactures of the township are cotton and woollen goods (especially corduroy), and market gardening is an important industry. The limits of the township, originally called West Hoosac, were determined by a committee of the General Court of Massachusetts in 1749, and two or three years later the village was laid out. Two of the lots were immediately purchased by Captain Ephraim Williams (1715–1755), who was at the time commander of Fort Massachusetts in the vicinity; several other lots were bought by soldiers under him; and in 1753 the proprietors organized a township government. Williams was killed in the battle of Lake George on the 8th of September 1755, but while in camp in Albany, New York, a few days before the battle, he drew a will containing a small bequest for a free school at West Hoosac on condition that the township when incorporated should be called Williamstown. The township was incorporated with that name in 1765.
See A. L. Perry, Origins in Williamstown (New York, 1894; 3rd ed. 1900); and Williamstown and Williams College (Norwood, Mass., 1899).
WILLIAMS-WYNN, SIR WATKIN, Bart. (1692–1749), Welsh politician, was the eldest son and heir of Sir William Williams, Bart., of Llanforda near Oswestry; his mother, Jane Thelwall, was a descendant of the antiquary. Sir John Wynn of Gwydir, Carnarvonshire. Educated at Jesus College, Oxford, Williams succeeded to Wynnstay near Ruabon and the estates of the Wynns on the death of a later Sir John Wynn in 1719, and took the name of Williams-Wynn. He was member of parliament for Denbighshire from 1716 to 1741, and was prominent among the opponents of Sir Robert Walpole; as a leading and influential Jacobite he was in communication with the supporters of Prince Charles Edward before the rising of 1745, but his definite offer of help did not reach the prince until the retreat to Scotland had begun. He died on the 26th of September 1749. His first wife, Ann Vaughan (d. 1748), was the heiress of extensive estates in Montgomeryshire which still belong to the family. His son and heir, Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, Bart. (1749–1789), was the father of another Sir Watkin (1772–1842), the 5th baronet. Two other sons attained some measure of distinction: Charles (1775–1850), a prominent Tory politician, and Sir Henry (1783–1856), a diplomatist. A daughter, Frances Williams-Wynn (d. 1857), was the authoress of Diaries of a Lady of Quality, 1797–1844, which were edited with notes by Abraham Hayward in 1864.
See Askew Roberts, Wynnstay and the Wynns (Oswestry, 1876).
WILLIBRORD (or Wilbrord), ST (d. 738), English missionary, “the apostle of the Frisians,” was born about 657. His father, Wilgils, an Angle or, as Alcuin styles him, a Saxon, of Northumbria, withdrew from the world and constructed for himself a little oratory dedicated to St Andrew. The king and nobles of the district endowed him with estates till he was at last able to build a church, over which Alcuin afterwards ruled. Willibrord, almost as soon as he was weaned, was sent to be brought up at Ripon, where he must doubtless have come under the influence of Wilfrid. About the age of twenty the desire of increasing his stock of knowledge (c. 679) drew him to Ireland, which had so long been the headquarters of learning in western Europe. Here he stayed for twelve years, enjoying the society of Ecgberht and Wihtberht, from the former of whom he received his commission to missionary work among the North-German tribes. In his thirty-third year (c. 690) he started with twelve companions for the mouth of the Rhine. These districts were then occupied by the Frisians under their king, Rathbod, who gave allegiance to Pippin of Herstal. Pippin befriended him and sent him to Rome, where he was consecrated archbishop (with the name Clemens) by Pope Sergius on St Cecilia’s Day 696.[1] Bede says that when he returned to Frisia his see was fixed in Ultrajectum (Utrecht). He spent several years in founding churches and evangelizing, till his success tempted him to pass into other districts. From Denmark he carried away thirty boys to be brought up among the Franks. On his return he was wrecked on the holy island of Fosite (Heligoland), where his disregard of the pagan superstition nearly cost him his life. When Pippin died, Willibrord found a supporter in his son Charles Martel. He was assisted for three years in his missionary work by St Boniface (719–722), who, however, was not willing to become his successor.
He was still living when Bede wrote in 731. A passage in one of Boniface’s letters to Stephen III. speaks of his preaching to the Frisians for fifty years, apparently reckoning from the time of his consecration. This would fix the date of his death in 738; and, as Alcuin tells us he was eighty-one years old when he died, it may be inferred that he was born in 657—a theory on which all the dates given above are based, though it must be added that they are substantially confirmed by the incidental notices of Bede. The day of his death was the 6th of November, and his body was buried in the monastery of Echternach, near Trier, which he had himself founded. Even in Alcuin’s time miracles were reported to be still wrought at his tomb.
The chief authorities for Willibrord’s life are Alcuin’s Vita Willibrordi, both in prose and in verse, and Bede’s Hist. Eccl. v. cc. 9-11. See also Eddius’s Vita Wilfridii, and J. Mabillon, Annales ordinis sancti Benedicti, lib. xviii.
WILLIMANTIC, a city of Windham county, Connecticut, U.S.A., in the township of Windham, at the junction of the Willimantic and Natchaug rivers to form the Shetucket, in the E. part of the state, about 16 m. N.W. of Norwich. Pop. (1890) 8648; (1900) 8937, of whom 2491 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 11,230. It is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford and the Central Vermont railways, and by electric lines to Baltic, Norwich and New London, and to South Coventry. It is the seat of a State Normal Training School, and has a public library and Dunham Hall Library (1878). The Willimantic river provides good water-power, and there are various manufactures. The total value of the factory product in 1905 was $4,902,447. The township of Windham was incorporated in 1692. Willimantic was settled in 1822, incorporated as a borough in 1833, and chartered as a city in 1893. The name is from an Indian word meaning “good look-out” or “good cedar swamps.”
WILLIS, NATHANIEL PARKER (1806–1867), American author, was descended from George Willis, described as a “Puritan of considerable distinction,” who arrived in New England about 1630 and settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Nathaniel Parker was the eldest son and second child of Nathaniel Willis, a newspaper proprietor in Boston, and was born in Portland, Maine, on the 20th of January 1806. After attending Boston grammar school and the academy at Andover, he entered Yale College in October 1823. Although he did not specially distinguish himself as a student, university life had considerable influence in the development of his character, and furnished him with much of his literary material. Immediately after leaving Yale he published in 1827 a volume of poetical Sketches, which attracted some attention, although the critics found in his verses more to blame than to praise. It was followed by Fugitive Poetry (1829) and another volume of verse (1831). He also
- ↑ He had been consecrated bishop, also by Sergius, on a previous visit in 692.
