Born in Penrith, Cumberland County, England, December 25, 1822. When a lad of eleven years John Williamson learned the weaver's trade with his father and continued to follow that pursuit during his residence in his native land. On the 8th of May, 1851, he married Susan Marsden, a native of Yorkshire, England. Going to Dover, N. H., both Mr. and Mrs. Williamson began work in a factory. During four years of labor and saving, they had acquired enough to enable them to make an investment in western lands and with that purpose in view they came to Jefferson County in May, 1855, where they purchased fifty acres of prairie land, four miles west of Fairfield. In Keosauqua on the 30th of October, 1856, Mr. Williamson became a naturalized citizen of America, since which time he has been a stanch supporter of Republican principles. He has always taken an active interest in public affairs and at the time the county board consisted of one supervisor for each township, he was appointed to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Mr. Hampson, and was elected the succeeding term. In 1881, he made the race for the Legislature on the Republican ticket and served in the Nineteenth Iowa General Assembly. In 1886 he was selected from some six candidates as Superintendent of the County. As a public speaker Mr. Williamson was in great demand, whether at Old Settlers Associations, in political campaigns or as a Fourth of July orator. He took an active part in political conventions and is said, by those who have been pitted against him, to be a hard man to outgeneral. Under the disadvantages of poverty and lack of educational opportunities Mr. Williamson had to fight his own battles, and is, in the truest sense of the word, a self-made man.