Transcription contributed by Martie Callihan 11 October 2005

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FRANCIS A. WILLIAMSON, M. D., deceased, (late of Waynesville), was born Nov. 14, 1812, at Manney's Neck, North Carolina, near the line of Virginia; was a son of Francis and Elizabeth (Worrel) Williamson, natives of Virginia, his ancestors being of Scotch descent. Mr. Williamson was possessed of a large estate, which was located partly in Virginia and partly in North Carolina, being at one time a large slave-owner, and was a very prominent man of that State—a man of good education and high intellectual attainments, a devoted Christian gentleman, and a minister in the Christian denomination for twenty yearn; a liberal thinker and progressionist, far ahead of most of his cotemporaries of that day, and convinced of the evil of slavery, he gratuitously liberated all his slaves; he was the father of six children; three now survive—Elijah, James, and Mary, now Mrs. Bryant, residing in Virginia. Our subject, at quite an early age, was sent to school and acquired a good education under the instructions of the teachers of Murfreesboro, N. C.; he early acquired a taste for literature, and about 1832 taught a classical school in Hanover, Va., after which he read medicine with Dr. Trezvant, of Jerusalem, Va.; thence attended two courses of lectures at the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, and thence two courses at Cincinnati, and received his degree of M. D. in 1845. In 1837-38, he traveled over the Western States, lecturing on one of his favorite themes—phrenology; he visited jails, asylums and penitentiaries, traveling over twenty States of the Union, and occasionally delivering lectures before literary institutions. In December, 1839, was celebrated his union with Miss Miriam Pierce, who was born in Wilmington, Ohio, in 1822; she was a daughter of Richard and Mary (Fallis) Pierce, he a native of Wilmington, Del., and she of Virginia; the great-great-grandmother, Miriam Pierce, was a physician and nurse in the Revolutionary war, for which services she received $700 per year. The ancestors of the Fallis family were of English descent, and became early settlers of Virginia, and were among the most prominent families of that State; John Fallis, the father of Mary, became very wealthy, owning large tracts of land in Pennsylvania, and later in life he