A brief history of Williamstown - Massachusetts

Williamstown began in 1750 as a plantation known as West Hoosuck. Lots were laid out and the town was slowly settled until the beginning of the French and Indian War in 1754.

During the French and Indian War, Williamstown is the western most outpost in a line of forts along the northern border of Massachusetts. The forts were under the command of Col. Ephraim Williams Jr., who was commissioned by the governor to lay out two townships at the headwaters of the Hoosic River. The Townships were called East and West Hoosuck.

In 1765 the town was incorporated as Williamstown according to the will of Col. Ephraim Williams, who was killed at the Battle of Lake George in 1755.

Ephraim Williams, older son of Ephraim and Elizabeth (Jackson) Williams, was born in 1715. According to tradition he visited England, Spain and Holland in his youth and, although he had little formal schooling, he had an admiration of learning. He spent the last ten years of his life as a colonial soldier, with headquarters at Fort Shirley, Mass., and latter at Fort Massachusetts.

In 1750, the General Court granted him 190 acres near the latter fort and he held lots in West Township [i.e., Williamstown]. Williams left a large part of his estate to support and maintain a free school in West Township on the condition that it were named after him and started a free school. The school opened in October of 1791 with 15 students.

By incorporating Williamstown in the colony of Massachusetts, the Proprietors were making clear that they intended this town to be in that colony, which was another requirement of Ephraim Williams’ will. The actual border was not settled until after the end of the American Revolution, which is why it took so much longer to establish the “free school”.

The free school became Williams College in 1793 under a charter from the Commonwealth, becoming the second college, following Harvard, to be founded in Massachusetts.
 A brief history of Williamstown - Massachusetts 

Brief history of San Francisco, United States

San Francisco is the fourth largest city in California, coming behind Los Angeles, San Diego and San Jose.

In 1776, the Spanish officer Juan Bautista de Anza a built a fort to guard the entrance to the San Francisco Bay, and in the same year, Junipero Serra established an outpost in what is now Mission Dolores.

Not long a Spanish outpost, it became a part of Mexico flowing Mexican independence in 1821. San Francisco was captured by the United States in 1846 in the Mexican War. In 1847, the Americans rename the outpost San Francisco, and in 1850 it was incorporated as a city. A gold rush in 1848 swelled the town’s population.

 

San Francisco city was untouched physically b the Civil War, but its banking and mining related businesses made important contributions to the Union economy as did the city’s shipping activity.

On April 18, 1906, San Francisco was extensively damage by a massive earthquake. In 1934, the city was virtually close down by a longshoremen’s strike that spread into a general regional strike.
Brief history of San Francisco, United States