Ephraim Williams - Legacy

Legacy

Ephraim left his sizeable estate to support the founding of a free school on his land in western Massachusetts, on the condition that the town be named after him (Williamstown, Massachusetts), that the town be part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and that the free school be made on land he donated. The school was founded in 1791 and converted to a college, Williams College, in 1793.

Ebenezer Fitch, the first President of Williams College, wrote a biographical sketch of Ephraim Jr. in 1802. He described the college's benefactor as follows: "In his person, he was large and fleshy...His address was easy, and his manners pleasing and conciliating. Affable and facetious, he could make himself agreeable in all companies; and was very generally esteemed, respected, and beloved."

Ephraim Jr. also appears in an early version of "Yankee Doodle":

Brother Ephraim sold his Cow

And bought him a Commission;

And then he went to Canada

To fight for the Nation;

But when Ephraim he came home

He proved an arrant Coward,

He wouldn't fight the Frenchmen there

For fear of being devour'd.

There are no known portraits of Ephraim Williams.