William Williams didn’t leave behind a diary, letters, or a tidy biography. What we know comes from his pension declaration and a few memories preserved by neighbors and early county historians. Even so, those fragments reveal a man who fought through the final years of the Revolution, roamed the early Midwest, and helped shape Delaware County before it officially existed on paper.
To mark the United States’ 250th birthday, the Daughters of the American Revolution has joined forces with America250, the nationwide commemoration of our country’s semiquincentennial, to pay tribute to Revolutionary War Patriots. As part of the celebration, I’ll be sharing the stories of those laid to rest in Delaware County, with help from Kathi Hirons Kesterson -the regent of the Paul Revere Chapter of Muncie’s DAR– over the next several Fridays.
Born in March 1762 in Laurens District, South Carolina, William Williams enlisted by joining the state militia in May 17791. At first, he entered service at Ninety Six, South Carolina, under Captains Boyd and Robert Madison, Major Samuel Farries, and Colonel Benjamin Kilgore2. He performed militia duty there for two months3.
From that initial base, Williams was sent to Pickens Fort, where his service stretched into a seventeen-month stint “skirmishing with the Indians and Tories4.” Unfortunately, the fighting didn’t leave Williams unscathed. He was wounded during those encounters with injuries that stayed with him for the rest of his life.
After the Revolutionary War, William Williams returned to South Carolina, where he lived until around 1805. From there, he moved to Warren, Greene, and Montgomery Counties in Ohio. He eventually migrated to Randolph and Wayne Counties in eastern Indiana, before coming to Delaware County around 18235.
What makes William Williams’ move to Delaware County fascinating is its timing. The county had been authorized back in 1820, but it wouldn’t be officially organized until 1827. Williams arrived ahead of the curve: so early, in fact, that he became one of the very first settlers in what’s now Liberty Township! Williams’ log cabin even hosted the county’s first election in 1824 when about twenty ballots were cast in the presidential showdown we all remember between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson6.
Williams’ backwoods cabin was more hub than homestead. Not only did it host the area’s very first election, it also doubled as the local post office, likely the earliest in Delaware County. Even so, the place itself was nothing fancy. One early account put it plainly: the cabin “was in harmony with the rude times in which it flourished7.” In other words, it was rough, it was simple, and it was nothing more than what the frontier demanded.
Long ago, locals used to tell a story about a venerable Methodist preacher named Garretson who ran a small store in the nearby village of Smithfield. One day, feeling it was his sacred duty, he pulled the aging Revolutionary War veteran aside and offered him a heartfelt warning about tending to his spiritual well-being. Williams listened politely, and the preacher began to think his message might actually be sinking in. Then Williams finally spoke. “Uncle Ben,” he said, “damned if I don’t think the Methodists and the dog-fennel will take this town8.”
Not long after, around the age of eighty, William Williams made his way into Delaware County Probate Court to file his pension declaration on August 10, 1842. Time had softened the edges of memory, and he admitted he could no longer “recollect the names of any regular officer or officers with whom he served, or that there were any such in the campaigns in which he served9.” Even so, he swore off any claim to other pensions or annuities and confirmed that his name appeared on no pension roll in any state.
In the end, the strength of Williams’ testimony mattered more than the holes time had worn through it. His paper trail may have been thin, but his pension was approved all the same. Sadly, he didn’t collect it for long: Williams died not long afterward in 1842 and was laid to rest about three hundred yards from the round-log cabin his son had built for him along the southern banks of the White River10. By 1907, that humble burial spot somewhere just south of today’s Wapahani High School11 held no visible trace of the man who once helped define Delaware County’s earliest days.
What survives of William Williams’ life still cuts a clear silhouette against the backdrop of early Delaware County. He was a wounded veteran, a frontier settler, a reluctant participant in religious admonitions, and even a civic cornerstone. His story is stitched together from fragments, but telling it gives back a little of what time has taken. We remember a man who helped anchor Liberty Township before it even had a name, and we keep alive a Revolutionary War Patriot whose memory might otherwise have slipped away along the banks of the White River. Today, a cenotaph at Beech Grove Cemetery remembers his service too.
Sources Cited
1 “Williams, William” pension file S.32,595, South Carolina service, US Revolutionary War Pensions, 1800-1900, publication M804, Case Files of Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Applications Based on Revolutionary War Service, NARA microfilm publication M804, roll 2596; digital images, Fold3. Transcribed by Kathryn Hirons Kesterson.
2 (See footnote 1).
3 (See footnote 1).
4 (See footnote 1).
5 Haimbaugh, F.D. (1924). History of Delaware County, Indiana. Volume I. Historical Publishing Company [Indianapolis]. book.
6 Kerwood, A.L. (1910, May 5). 6 Builders of a Nation. The Muncie Star. p. 4.
7 (See footnote 6).
8 (See footnote 6).
9 (See footnote 1).
10 (See footnote 6).
11 Delaware County Map, 1900 (1900). Indiana State Library. Web. Retrieved December 11, 2025.
