BEPKESENTATIVE MEN OF OREGON. 127
in 1863 and .jvas engaged in selling goods afc Hillsboro until 18(i8, when he was elected County Clerk of Washington county and was re-elected in 1870. In May, 1873, he was appointed Deputy Collector of Cu.stojnK at As- toria, and served as such until June, 1881, when he was appointed Col- lector of the port in place of Hon. W. D. Hare, whose term of office had ex- pired. Capt. Merryman is a gentleman of marked executive ability and as a public officer has given universal satisfaction. He was married "in Mav, 1873, to Miss Rebecca Eagleton, of Hillsboro. Men of Capt. Merrynian's stamp are a credit to any community.
HON. GEORGE H. WILLIAMS Was born in Columbia county, New York, on the 2(;th day of Marcli, 1,S'23. He was educated at the academy on Pompey hill, in Onondago county, where his father removed at an early day. He studied law with the Hon. Daniel Gott. At the age of twenty-one he was admitted to practice in the courts of that State. In the same year he immigrated to the, then, Territorv of Iowa, and commenced the practice of his profession at Fort Machson. In 1847 he was elected Judge of the Fifth Judicial District of Iowa. He discharged the duties of that office for five years, when both political parties offered to join in his re-election, but he declined. In 1852 he was nominat- ed by the Democratic State Convention of Iowa as one of the Presidential Electors and canvassed the State for Franklin Pierce. In Marcli, IHTui, chiefly upon the recommendation of Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, wIk) was his personal friend, he was appointed Chief Justice of the, then, Territory of Oregon, and immediately with his family removed here. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention from Marion county, and was Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He was reappointed Chief Justice of the Terri- tory by President Buchanan, but resigned and resumed the practice of Ijis profession at Portland. Many leaders of the Democratic party at the time the State Government was formed were in favor of making Oregon a slave State, and that question, separate and apart from the Constitution, was sulimitted by the Constitutional Convention to the people. Mr. Williams took decid- ed ground against the establishment of slavery in the new State, s])eaking and writing against it, and the pro-slavery party was defeated, but his standing as a party man was greatly impaired by the contest. When the secession movement was inaugurated Mr. Wilhams dissolved his ct)nne('tion with the Democratic party and assisted in the formation of a Union party in the State. In September, 1864, he was elected by the Union, or Rei)Td»li- can, party U. S. Senator from this State. Mr. WiUiams took his seat in the Senate about the end of the civil war, and when it became necessary in Con- gress to consider and settle the difficult and complicated questions gnjwing out of that sectional and sanguinary struggle. A joint committee of the two Houses, consisting of thirteen members, of which Mr. Williams was one, was organized to examine and report upon matters pertaining to the reconstruc- tion of the Union. A vast amount of testimony was taken and various propositions discussed by this committee without any definite conclusion. Meanwhile President Andrew Johnson was proceeding independently of
