Williams

Archibald Williams was born June 10, 1801, in Montgomery County, Kentucky. He was admitted to the bar in Tennessee in 1828. Williams was one of Adams County’s first resident attorneys, having settled in Quincy in 1829

Upon Quincy’s incorporation in 1834, he was Archibald Williams elected a trustee and first Board President. He represente d the village of Columbus in its effort to move the Adams County seat there. He was a delegate to the Illinois Constitutional Convention in 1847. For more than thirty years he was considered one of the state’s foremost attorneys and politicians.

It is understandable that a strong personal relationship developed between Lincoln and Williams, considering the similarities in their backgrounds. Both men were born in rural Kentucky and self-educated. Both were volunteers in the Black Hawk War.

Lincoln and Williams served together in the Illinois State Legislature in Vandalia as loyal Whigs. Williams was the senior, having been elected in 1832. In 1849 Lincoln endorsed Williams for District Attorney of the State of Illinois. Lincoln’s first documented visit to Quincy was to support Williams’s 1854 Congressional campaign.

Quincy Friends

Archibald Williams

As a former senator, Williams had access to both houses of the state legislature and spent a great deal of time conferring with Lincoln in the House after he was no longer in office. Visitors at the State House, seeing Williams and Lincoln with heads together in earnest conversation inquired, “Who in hell are those two ugly men. . .?”

In 1861 President Lincoln appointed Williams to the first U.S. District Court in Kansas. Williams was a welcome guest at the Lincoln White House. His last visit was in 1862.

Archibald Williams died in Quincy on September 21, 1863, and was buried in Woodland Cemetery in Quincy.

– Jim Barry

City of Quincy Lincoln Bicentennial Commission 706 Maine Quincy, Illinois 62301