Ramon Oscar Williams (1828-1913): The
following was included in "New York State's Prominent and
Progressive Men," Compiled by Mitchell C. Harrison in 1900
and published by the New York Tribune.The chapter entitled Ramon O. Williams is from Volume II, pages 377-380.
RAMON O. WILLIAMS
Ramon O. Williams was born in Washington, D. C. about seventy years ago. His father was George Williams and his mother Jeanette Anne Young, natives of Washington, and of Colonial and English ancestry.
When a mere child, he was sent to Cuba with his father, who was to leave him with an aunt born in Maryland, and married to a Spanish merchant established at Havana. She, having no children, wished to adopt her little nephew, who at her request had been named after her husband as her son. He went to school in Havana. His mother, not wishing to part forever with her son, after a time requested his return to her, which was done. Then he went to school in Alexandria, Virginia, and in Washington. His father having died early, he was taken from school at the age of 12 years and placed to work in the office of Blair and Rives, editors and proprietors of "The Globe." Some time after, he went to the office of the "Madisonian." This paper was the organ of the John Tyler Administration. At the age of eighteen Mr. Williams returned to Havana, where he completed his education under private instruction, since which time he has been continually connected with the commerce of that island with the United States.
In the year 1856 he was sought by some of his fellow-countrymen, residents of New London and Mystic, Connecticut, to represent them in defense of a proposition they wished to present to the Captain-General of Cuba for the free introduction of live fish from the west coast of Florida into Havana. Prior to the transfer of Florida in 1821, under the treaty of 1819, the West coast of Florida had served as the fishing grounds for the market of Havana. By reason of this treaty, these Florida fishing-grounds and the market of Havana had become foreign to each other; and the legislation of Spain reserved the catching and supplying of fresh fish to the retired sailors of the King's Navy; therefore, the Spanish law prohibited the trade. But the law was evaded, and the trade carried on in American smacks, that fished on the West coast of Florida under the American flag, and brought their catches into the port of Havana under the Spanish flag. That is, each of those smacks carried both flags. The famous Don Francisco Marti had the monopoly of supplying fresh fish to Havana. He made an immense fortune out of this business, while the American fishermen scarcely made a living. It was because of this inequality of conditions that Mr. Williams was sought by the fishermen to represent them before General Concha, then Captain-General of the Island. After several months Mr. Williams succeeded against the millionaire Mr. Marti, and fresh fish was supplied to the people of Havana, under the American flag, at from eight to ten cents per pound, whereas under the monopoly of Mr. Marti they had to pay twenty-five cents and upwards per pound. The result was, the people of Havana got cheaper fish and the American fishermen got better returns for their labor. In this contest against Mr. Marti, Mr. Williams gained his first insight into the economics of Cuba, which subject became a favorite study with him ever afterward.
In 1868, on learning of the tender of the annexation of the Republic of Santo Domingo to the United States, by General Baez, he instantly saw, being then engaged in sugar-planting, the disintegrating effect on monarchy and African slavery in Cuba if that proposition was carried out, would have on the Cuban problem, because of the economic dependence of the island on the sugar market of the United States, which dependence had been recently wrought by the cyclic events of the destruction of the Louisiana sugar crop, during our Civil War. At the request of the late John E. Develin of New York, he made a sketch of his views, which was read and approved by several Americans of high intellectual standing.
Mr. Williams withdrew from business in 1874, and took up his residence in New York.
In the same year of 1874, at the solicitation of the late Thurlow Weed of New York, he showed, for Frederick W. Seward, how the negotiation of reciprocity treaties with other sugar countries than Cuba would effectively solve the Cuban problem without war, and by the mere effect of economic force. A copy of this sketch later fell into the hands of the late Charles A. Dana, who headed it with the title of "Some Considerations on the Absurd Commercial Relations between Spain and the United States," and published it in a daily issue of the "Sun," in January, 1876.
Shortly after his return to the United States in 1874, he was requested to go back to Havana to take charge of the United States consulate-general, during General Grant's administration, for three or four months, which he accepted. He soon afterwards received the honorary appointment of vice-consul-general. At the end of ten years he resigned this position. In 1884 he was appointed by President Arthur to be United States consul-general at Havana, and was continued during the successive administrations of Presidents Cleveland and Harrison.
In 1890 he was called to Washington by order of Secretary Blaine to assist in supporting the proposed amendment of the McKinley Tariff Bill of that year. To this end he went before Senators Allison, Aldrich, Hiscoch, and Jones, the majority members of the Senate committee then having the subject under consideration, and before Representatives Burroughs, Gear, and Hitt of the corresponding House committee, to whom he expressed his view in favor of the proposition which afterward took form under the Aldrich Amendment.
On the breaking out of the Cuban insurrection in 1895, Mr. Williams had to defend, under the treaties between the two governments, many Cubans who had obtained naturalization papers in the United States and had taken part in the insurrection, and having, in consequence, been considered persona non grata by the Captain-General of Cuba (Callejas), and the Madrid government, and also for reasons of self-respect he obtained leave of absence to go to Washington, where he signified his intention to President Cleveland to resign at once. But he returned to Havana, at the request of the President, for a short time, intending to forward his resignation from there. However, with the precedents in his memory of the fate of the Critteden men in Havana in 1851, and the public execution of their leader, General Narciso Lopez, of which act Mr. Williams had been a near-by witness, and of the Virginius men at Santiago in 1873, and from his desire to serve the cause of international peace, knowing that the foundation of Spanish power in Cuba was essentially economic, and fast exhausting itself from the violation of the natural economic law, as defined by Isaiah, in arithmetical ratio, the key to all the physical sciences, in his warning to the merchant princess of Tyre (chapter xxiv., verses 1, 2, 3), he remained in Havana a year longer, attending to the many cases of the Cubans with United States naturalization papers. As soon as, in his judgment, a sufficient number of these cases had been settled for the formation of an adequate jurisprudence under the treaties, he then sent his formal and irrevocable resignation to the President. In the full faith of the sufficiency of article 7 of the treaty of 1795, between the United States and Spain, and the protocol of January 12, 1877, negotiated at Madrid by the late Caleb Cushing, Mr. Williams rejected the pressure brought upon him to ask the government at Washington to station a vessel of war in the harbor of Havana, fully believing in his ability to defend and to obtain all the stipulated rights of American citizens without any such aid, having, besides, reasons to suspect that the calling of a man-of-war might become a doubtful expedient.
His last important official act was the defense of the men of the Competitor expedition, which vessel had been captured with officers and crew while landing arms an recruits for the insurgents in the province of Pinar del Rio on the north coast of Cuba. For his action in this matter he was highly complemented by the Department of State.
Reasoning from the fundamental principles of economics, Mr. Williams frequently pointed out in his consular reports, yet unpublished, the disasters that awaited Spanish power in Cuba.
He lived for a few years with his aunt in Cuba as a child after which he returned home. He worked for newspaper editors at the age of 12 to help support his family after his father died. In 1847 at the age of 19 he returned to Cuba and finished his education. He was very fond of both Spaniards and Cubans. In Cuba he was successful in many business ventures from import/export to sugar planter. He was in the shipping business between Baltimore and Havana. He retired from business in 1874 and moved to 35 Cambridge Place in Brooklyn, NY (although he was not listed in the annual Brooklyn City Dir until the 1879/80 edition). In 1871, he was appointed Vice Consul to Cuba by President Ulysses S Grant, a personal friend. He resigned after 10 years. In 1884 he was appointed Consul General by President Warren G Harding receiving a salary of $6,000 per year, the largest of salary of any consul general (according to a newspaper, probably the Brooklyn Daily Eagle). He resigned in 1896 after serving under three administrations. The 1880, 1900, and 1910 censuses listed him as a sugar merchant, a banker, and own income respectively. All three censuses list his home as 35 Cambridge Pl, Brooklyn and the last listed it as being owned with no mortgage. The house was an old brownstone. In 1880 his son Ramon was at college and all other children were at school. The other residents in 1900 were Angela G Williams (wife), M Angelina Disbrow (daughter), William J Disbrow (son in-law), George A Williams (son), Alice A Williams (daughter in-law), Ramon O Williams (grandson), Robert A Williams (son), Annie J Welsh (servant), and Marie McMaster (servant). In 1910 they were the same people except William Disbrow was not there and Jane A and Angela L Williams (granddaughters) were there. There was one servant and his name was Ernist Miller. On his fiftieth wedding anniversary he received the following letter from the manager of the Spanish department of a New York mercantile house: "When I consider all the good you did for the Cubans during the Revolution and when you were acting as consul-general or minister of your country, I feel very proud of your friendship and grateful in every respect for the victims you saved from the ferocity of Spaniards and their government. I do sincerely hope that all your Cuban friends think as I do toward you, and also that they will appreciate your best and glorious deeds."
Angela Luciana Garcia Williams
(1836-1928): Her obituary from the "Brooklyn Daily
Eagle"
Alice Wadsworth Ayer Williams
(1873-1966): She was born in Ashland, VA. Her parents were Ira
Ayer II and Jennie James.