Kentucky:  A History of the State, Battle, Perrin, & Kniffin, 3rd ed., 
1886. Warren County.

PROF. J. TOM WILLIAMS, assistant principal and business manager of the 
Southern Normal School and Business College, at Bowling Green, is a 
native of Barren County, Ky,; born November 13, 1856, and is a son of 
Dr. W. A. and Mary J. Williams, nee Graves, a daughter of Bartlet 
Graves, an early settler of Barren County, Ky., who died about 1854.  
The father of Prof. Williams was born in Barren County, Ky., in 1822, 
and his mother in the same county in 1829.  His paternal grandfather, 
Matthew Williams, was a native of Virginia, and came to Kentucky in the 
early days of the State.  Prof. Williams remained on the farm until 
1869, when he moved to Glasgow, entered the normal school at that place 
and graduated in 1877.  The same year he began teaching and took charge 
of the high school at Edmonton, Ky., where he remained more than two 
years.  He then went to Macon, Miss., there continued teaching for some 
time, and then returned to Kentucky.  In 1882 he formed a partnership 
with Prof. A. W. Mell, in normal school work, which partnership still 
continues.  The school is known as the Southern Normal School and 
Business College now, and located at Bowling Green, Ky.; was established 
in 1875.  It was organized to meet the demands for such work in the 
South.  Since its organization it has steadily increased in popularity 
and influence, until now it is the largest normal school in the South; 
during the present year over 500 pupils have been enrolled.  The school 
embraces the following courses:  classical, scientific, commercial, 
teachers, engineering, preparatory, short-hand, type-writing, 
telegraphy, music and art.  The alumni of the school consist of a large 
number of intelligent ladies and gentlemen, who are filling successfully 
the best positions in every vocation of life through the South and West.  
Profs. Mell and Williams are proprietors and principals, and are the 
leading normal school workers of the South.

Graves Mell Williams
=
Barren-KY Edmonton-Metcalfe-KY MS VA

http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/warren/williams.jt.txt