Kentucky: A History of the State, Battle, Perrin, & Kniffin, 4th ed., 
1887 Mercer Co.

JOHN AUGUSTUS WILLIAMS, A.M., LL.D., president of the Daughters College,
Harrodsburg, Ky., was born September 21, 1824, in Bourbon County, Ky. 
His father was Dr. Charles E. Williams, a native of Montgomery County, 
a physician of high standing, a man of scholarly attainments, who for 
many years was associated with his son in the management of the affairs 
of Daughters College, and who finally passed away in 1881 to the 
enjoyment of still higher scenes and associations.  The mother of Prof. 
Williams was Arabella Dodge, daughter of one of the early merchants and 
manufacturers of Lexington, Ky.   The Williams family is of Welsh 
extraction.  Raleigh Williams, grandfather of Prof. Williams, 
immigrated to Kentucky from Virginia with the early settlers of the 
former State.  Prof. Williams passed the opening years of his life at 
Paris, Bourbon County, where his earliest instruction was received, and 
at the age of fifteen, entered Bacon College, then located at 
Georgetown as a student.  While in attendance at that institution it 
was removed to Harrodsburg, and subsequently became known as the 
Kentucky University, from which our subject graduated in 1843, under 
the presidency of Dr. James Shannon.  He subsequently received the
degree of A.M. from his alma mater, and later, that of LL.D., from the
Masonic University at La Grange, Ky.  After leaving college he entered
on the study of law with a view of adopting that profession, but was 
prevented from accomplishing that purpose by the development of a very 
decided taste for teaching and the discovery of serious needs in the 
educational system of the State.  In 1848 he took charge of what was 
called Prospect Hill Seminary, a boarding school for young ladies and 
gentlemen near Mount Sterling, an institution which became very 
prosperous under his management, and in which he obtained considerable 
distinction from his original methods and superior talents as a teacher.
He soon after established a female college at North Middleton, in 
Bourbon County, known as Bourbon Institute, in which he aimed to carry 
into full effect his advanced plans of education.  In 1851 he was urged 
to and did establish his institution at Columbia, Mo., the seat of 
Missouri University.  A liberal charter was granted by the State, and 
under the designation of Christian College it was formally organized in 
the spring of that year.  His conduct of the school brought it into 
popular notice and universal popularity, filling it to overflowing with 
young ladies of the best families in the State.  He presided over that 
institution until 1856, when ill health and a desire to return and 
labor in his native State, induced him to resign.  In that year he 
purchased, in connection with his father, the property at Harrodsburg,
upon which is situated the celebrated Greenville Magnesian Springs, and
established the Daughters College, now one of the most successful
institutions of its kind in the State.  The name was given to the school
to express the two fundamental ideas of its educational system- that it 
was both a school that should be collegiate in its curriculum and 
methods, combined with a home that should meet the social and domestic 
wants of girls away from their parents.  The success that attended the 
opening of the school in 1856 has been almost uninterrupted to the 
present time- a period of nearly thirty-one years.  The war of the 
States cut off for a while some of its most distant patronage; but 
pupils continued to come even during that period, sometimes with 
military passes in their hands.  Not a day was lost during the four 
years of strife, though the sound of distant artillery sometimes 
mingled with the voices of the faithful teacher in the classrooms.  In 
1865 President Williams was appointed to the chair of moral and mental 
philosophy in Kentucky University, and afterward to the presidency of 
the State College, and then to that of the College of Arts at Lexington.
The two former positions he accepted and filled, but declined the 
latter; yet during his temporary absence Daughters College, though
limited in the number of its students, continued to prospered under the
skillful management of able assistants.  In 1868 Prof. Williams resigned
his position in the university at Lexington, and returned to his beloved
pupils at Harrodsburg.  Soon its halls were filled.  Students again
flocked in from Kentucky and the surrounding States.  Since that time it
has gone on quietly in its career of usefulness; and, without any 
special effort to obtain patronage, it has always been full.  It now has
150 students enrolled, representing fifteen States.  It is assumed, in 
the system of education at this college, that every student is to become
a teacher and trainer of youth, either in the capacity of mother, or in 
that of a professional teacher.  The effect of this policy is to give 
to the school a decidedly normal character, evinced by the fact that so 
large a number of good teachers are annually graduated therefrom.  From 
time to time, departures from the usual routine and customs of schools 
have been made as the experience of the faculty suggested.  It has 
consequently been recognized as the pioneer in many of the reforms that 
now characterize our best female schools.  The abolition of the rote 
methods of study and recitation, and the discontinuance of all public 
parades, rostrum performances and exhibitions of young lady students, 
were early insisted on; and papers adverse to these and other customs 
have been kept for years before the people in the annual catalogues of 
the college.  Public sentiment, especially in Kentucky, has at last 
begun to array itself against many of these things; and other 
institutions are beginning to modify or to discontinue them altogether. 
The life of Dr. John Aug. Williams has been a busy one, yet the wear and
tear that attend the off times routine labor of a popular educator, has 
made no strong impression upon his physical resources.  He is still well
preserved, ardently in love with his responsible and high calling, and 
actively engaged in solving the great problem of higher education in 
Kentucky.  He was one of the original movers in the organization of the 
State Teachers' Association, has contributed extensively to various 
literary and religious periodicals, and delivered many addresses. His 
life of "Elder John Smith" is a well known and standard volume. His most
important work, however, will be the one "Christian Ethics," now in 
course of preparation.  He has also occasionally been induced to occupy 
the pulpit of various churches, both in and out of his own denomination.
He is a man of fine tastes, has a great fondness for poetry, literature 
and art, of genial and attractive presence, kindly nature and greatly 
esteemed and respected by his associates and pupils, as well as by the 
community at large.  He was married in 1848 to Miss Mary L. Hathaway, 
daughter of Philip Hathaway of Montgomery County, Ky., a representative 
of one of the early pioneer families of Virginia, and a lady of great 
excellence of heart and mind.  Three sons born of the union are now 
living, viz.: Aug. E. Williams, professor of music in the college;
Bowman Guy Williams, bookkeeper in same, and Lee Price Williams, a young
student of medicine.

Williams Dodge Shannon Smith Hathaway
=
Mercer-KY Bourbon-KY Montgomery-KY VA MO

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