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Ephraim Williams, farmer and gardener, was born in Fiddington, Somersetshire, 

England, June 16, 1835.  He is one of the thirteen children born to Rovert 

and Elizabeth Williams, and his education was acquired mainly in the night 

schools, the advantages of the school system being limited there at that 

time.  At the age of sixteen or seventeen he was apprenticed to a Mr. Norman 

to learn the carpenter's trade, with hom he served five years.  He afterward 

visted various towns and cities of England, and in 1862 located in London, 

where he followed his trade ten years.  December 23, 1862, in Bath, England, 

he married Miss Elizabeth Bond, a native of Pitney, Somersetshire, England, 

who was born May 10, 1835.  They have had five children, viz.: Robert 

(deceased), Thomas, Annie Elizabeth, Mary Jessie and Ellen, the latter two 

being born in Jefferson County, Mo.  In June, 1870, Mr. Williams and family 

embarked from Liverpool for America, landing in Quebec, Canada.  They spent 

one winter in Oswego, N. Y., but the weather was so severe they concluded to 

look for more congenial climes, and moved to St. Louis, where Mr. Williams 

engaged in carpentering.  He was subsequently employed to erect the residence 

of W. S. Jewett, in Plattin Rock, Jefferson County, to which place he moved 

his family, and he it was who drove the first nail in the interest of the 

American Plate Glass Company, toward the completion of what is now Crystal 

City.  He owns sixty-eight and one half acres of land in Joachim Township 

and is engaged in farming and market gardening, in which he has been quite 

successful.  The family are Presbyterians in religion, and, politically, 

Mr. Williams is a Democrat.