ames D. Williams was born in Pickaway County, Ohio, January 16, 1808, and moved with his parents to Indiana in 1818, settling near the town of Vincennes, Knox County. He grew to manhood there, and upon the death of his father, in 1828, the support of the family devolved on him. He received a limited education in the pioneer log school-house, but, by mingling with the best people in the neighborhood, he obtained a sound practical knowledge of men and things, which, in a great measure, compensated for his early deficiency in literary studies, so that when, on reaching his majority, he was unusually well versed for one in his circumstances. He was reared a farmer, and naturally chose agriculture for his life work, and followed it with much more than ordinary success, until the close of his long and useful life. Governor Williams entered public life, in 1839, as justice of the peace, the duties of which he discharged in an eminently satisfactory manner for a period of four years, resigning in 1843. In the latter year, he was elected to the lower house of the state legislature, and from that time until his election to the national congress, in 1874, he was almost continuously identified with the legislative service of the state. Few men in Indiana have been so long in the public service, and few have been identified with more popular legislative measures than he. It is to him that the widows of Indiana are indebted for the law, which allows them to hold, without administration, the estates of their deceased husbands, when they do not exceed $300 in value. He was the author of the law that distributed the sinking fund among the counties of the state, and to him are the people largely indebted for the establishment of the state board of agriculture, an institution that has done much to foster and develop the agricultural interests of Indiana. He was a delegate to the national Democratic Convention at Baltimore in 1872, and in 1873 was the nominee for United State Senator against Oliver P. Morton, but the party being in the minority, he was defeated. He served in the national House of Representatives from December 1875, till December 1876, when he resigned, having been elected governor in the latter year. The campaign of 1876 was a memorable one, during which the opposition, both speakers and press, ridiculed the Democratic nominee for governor, making sport of his homespun clothes and plain appearance, but the Democracy seized upon his peculiarities and mad then the watch words of victory. Governor Williams, or Blue Jeans, as his friends were pleased to call him, was a man of the strictest integrity, and was known as a careful, painstaking executive entering into the minutest details of his office. He was self-willed and self-reliant, and probably consulted fewer persons about his official duties than any of his predecessors. In personal appearance, Governor Williams was over six feet high, remarkably straight, had large hands and feet, high cheek bones, long sharp nose, gray eyes, and a well formed head, covered profusely with black hair. He was courteous in his intercourse with others, a good conversationalist, and possessed a very marked degree of shrewdness and force of character. He died in the year 1880.