Background
Samuel M. Williams, Sr. was born on October 4, 1795, in Providence, Rhode Island, the son of Howell Williams and Dorothea Wheat, and a descendant of Robert Williams, who was admitted freeman of Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1638.
Samuel M. Williams, Sr. was born on October 4, 1795, in Providence, Rhode Island, the son of Howell Williams and Dorothea Wheat, and a descendant of Robert Williams, who was admitted freeman of Roxbury, Massachusetts, in 1638.
At the age of thirteen, Samuel went to Baltimore, Maryland, and became a clerk in the store of his uncle, Nathaniel F. Williams. When he was twenty he was a bookkeeper in New Orleans, where he also served briefly as secretary to Gen. Andrew Jackson.
The wonderful stories of Texas told him by Stephen F. Austin lured him westward, and at the age of twenty-six he wandered to the new settlement of San Felipe de Austin, where in September 1824, he became private secretary to Austin, and also a partner in his great colonization project. In this capacity he had charge of all drawings, maps, charts, and clerical work in the newly established colony. Largely as a result of his painstaking diligence and excellent handwriting the records of the colony were preserved for future generations. The numerous original letters now in the Rosenberg Library at Galveston bear testimony to his excellent qualifications as an executive secretary and business man. His ability to speak French and Spanish fluently was a valuable aid to him in his work. On one of his journeys to Mexico in the interest of the colony he was imprisoned for eleven months. He finally made his escape on horseback, found his way to San Antonio, and then rejoined the colony.
The extensive land speculations in which he engaged after 1834 made him extremely unpopular in Texas. During the troubled days preceding the revolution of 1836, the Mexican authorities proscribed him, put a price on his head, and made several unsuccessful attempts to capture him. Just before the revolution, Williams, Sr. resigned his connections with the Austin colony, and organized a mercantile partnership with Thomas F. McKinney at Quintana, Texas, a village at the mouth of the Brazos River. In 1837 the firm opened a similar business at the village of Galveston, and engaged in a number of promotion enterprises. Soon afterwards Williams, Sr. established his home there.
Gradually the firm of McKinney & Williams took on banking functions to supplement its general mercantile business. It planned to open The Commercial & Agricultural Bank at Galveston, for which Williams, Sr. had secured a charter from the combined Mexican state of Coahuila and Texas on April 30, 1835, but was unable to raise the necessary $100, 000 minimum capital. The firm served, however, as the financial backer of the young Republic of Texas.
After a delay of twelve years, the bank was finally opened on December 30, 1847. It was the first chartered bank in Texas and carried on an extensive business throughout the state for over ten years. Hundreds of travelers entering Texas by way of Galveston formed banking connections through it with the North and the East. A branch bank was opened at Brownsville on the Mexican border, and carried on a large international as well as local business. The people of Texas, however, as well as those in other parts of the United States were divided on the question of banks. Numerous lawsuits were filed against the Commercial & Agricultural Bank to annul its charter. Finally, with the death of Williams, Sr. at his Galveston home on September 13, 1858, and the adverse decision of the supreme court of Texas annulling the charter, the bank was closed.
On March 18, 1828, Samuel M. Williams, Sr. married Sarah Patterson Scott, to this union eight children were born.