The Williamson Family

Anyone who has ever taken a stroll through Grace Church Cemetery can’t avoid noticing the imposing pink granite monuments carved with the name Williamson that are sprinkled throughout the deteriorating nine-acre site. Thirty one Williamsons are buried here – in five different family plots sprinkled throughout the cemetery. The one that draws the most attention - and raises the most eyebrows - is a fenced in, L-shaped compound tucked away in a shady corner near the back of the cemetery. It contains 14 individual headstones, five angel statues and a massive, rose colored polished granite family monument, known as the masterpiece monument. 

The masterpiece monument is a 12-foot solid slab of Warsaw “Ruby Red” granite that rests in the center of the L-shaped compound. Carved to resemble an ornate church, the monument has a four-gabled roof with two small pink lambs of unpolished granite resting under the eaves of two sides of the monument. There are smooth, bas-relief Tuscan columns and carvings of decorative tasseled ropes that loop around the top, the 

base and the sides of the monument. Surrounding the monument are carvings of Scottish Bluebell and Scottish Thistle. The name Williamson is carved in bold, block letters near the base of the side that faces the entrance to the compound. On a ridge above the roof is a large oval carved with Scottish Thistle in the center and two leaves on either side, a replica of the brooch worn by Jamesina Williamson, the mother of many of the Williamsons buried in the cemetery. 

To one side of the masterpiece monument sits one very large, very rose colored, life sized granite sofa. Yes, a sofa. 

The answer to why there’s a shiny, dark pink, granite sofa in the Williamson family plot reveals the family’s history - a history rich with old world beginnings, new world adaptability, and a little bit of family lore and mystery thrown in. 

The sofa was carved in 1913 from a large piece of Warsaw “Ruby Red” granite at the request of the then 61-year-old family patriarch, William Williamson, who had selected the stone from a quarry in Wisconsin. Williamson had the sofa built so he could have something to sit on while he was supervising the workmen and artisans as they carved the massive slab of granite that would eventually become the masterpiece monument which dominates the compound today. 

The monument could only be carved when it was softened with water, but the cemetery’s water system didn’t reach the back corner where the compound was. At his own expense, William Williamson and his son Isaac paid for and laid a system of underground pipes so water could flow from the center of the cemetery to the rear where the masterpiece monument would be carved. 

The Williamson family never lived in Providence, but William Williamson decided to have the monument built when Rose MacNeil, his son Alick’s wife, died of tuberculosis in April 1913. Alick died three months later. Alick and Rose are buried several feet from the foot of the masterpiece monument, and under a light pink obelisk made from granite the family imported from Peterhead, Scotland. 

Originally from the extreme northern tip of Scotland, the Williamson family was part of a tiny minority of Scottish Highlanders known as Travellers. Their heritage dates back to the 1500s and possibly before. 

Travellers were known as skilled tradesmen and tinsmiths who spent their lives traveling from one town to the next on horseback, on foot or in wagons, selling tin ware and other goods, and occasionally horse-trading. They were a family-oriented people who managed to form close-knit communities in the midst of an itinerant lifestyle. Travellers were not individualists. Family members were expected to stick together, work hard and prosper for the good of the family, not the individual. 

Though Traveller culture was steeped in tradition, Travellers were highly adaptable to the times. As mass production and sale of tin ware became the norm in the 19th century, the Williamsons started selling other goods to replace it, such as fabrics and dishes. The family occasionally added to its income by purchasing the salvaging rights to old fishing vessels and stripping them of their wood and metal to sell as scrap. In modern times they replaced horse dealing in Scotland with automobile dealerships in America, and tin ware and china with real estate and contracting. But before the modern 

age, the Williamson family was traveling the Lowlands and Highlands of Scotland, plying whatever wares they could. 

In 1852, William Williamson was born in Latheron, Caithness, Scotland, and Jamesina Williamson, who would later become his wife, was born nearby in Wick, Caithness, in 1854. Although the two were first cousins and grew up together, intermarriage wasn’t uncommon within Traveller communities, and William and Jamesina married around 1870 in Thurso, Scotland when he was 18-years-old and she was 16. The marriage would span more than 60 years and produce 11 children; James, Jessie, Alick, Mary, Sarah, William, Isaac, George, John, Moses and Christina, an adopted daughter. 

In 1884 William, Jamesina and their first five children left Scotland for Canada in search of better profits. They became owners of a successful tavern and inn in Sherbrooke, Quebec until about 1888 when they sold the tavern and traveled around selling goods throughout Canada and the Great Lakes. 

The Williamsons were in eastern Toronto in 1890 when according to family lore, William Williamson, Sr. had to serve six months in a Toronto jail for shooting and killing a man from another Traveller family. There is no documented proof of the incident, but from family accounts passed down over the years, the story goes that William and the man were out drinking one night when an argument ensued. The two men drew their guns and when the smoke cleared, the other man was down and it was thought to be William’s bullet that put him there. 

The Williamson family doesn’t know exactly why William served only six months in jail, but after he finished his jail time, the family decided to return to Scotland. 

Using some of the money from the sale of their Quebec tavern, the Williamsons decided to purchase a china shop on High Street in Thurso. They called the shop, “Williamson’s English China Shop” and together they operated it for 10 years. 

During this decade, three of the Williamson children - James, Mary and Moses - died and were buried in Thurso Churchyard with their maternal grandfather (another William). 

In 1901 William and Jamesina decided to sell the china shop and return to their traveling lifestyle, but greener pastures beckoned. By 1903 they had gone through Ellis Island bringing Jamesina’s mother, Mary Norrie, with them. 

The Williamsons carried their Traveller culture with them to America and like other Travellers before them, they chose not to assimilate into the settled American population. Instead they continued to work as they always had, traveling from city to town, from town to country, peddling whatever goods were in demand. 

New York City was the family’s eastern base, Chicago its mid-western base. They made an annual trip to each city to buy a wide variety of goods they could then re-sell throughout the country. Traveling from one metropolitan city to another by train, the family put their horse and a buggy on the train with them, and used it to travel to the rural areas they couldn’t otherwise reach. 

By this time five of William and Jamesina’s children were married and the family was becoming more and more prosperous. 

Then in 1913, while the family was in California, Alick’s wife Rose contracted tuberculosis. According to a family member, the disease held such a stigma at the time that the family felt compelled to deny that Rose had it. Quietly however, the family sought help for her: The Williamsons heard that a doctor in Providence, Rhode Island was successfully treating tuberculosis patients and the entire family came here in a horse and buggy caravan seeking treatment for Rose. 

On the way, Alick became ill with the disease. By the time they reached Providence, both he and Rose were dying. By virtue of this tragedy, Grace Church Cemetery became the place where one-by-one, all members of the Williamson family would be buried regardless of where they were living at the time of death. 

The most recent Williamson burial (Catherine L. Williamson) in the cemetery was in 2000, but according to a family member, it’s unlikely there will be any more. The family is dismayed that the plots aren’t being cared for despite their having paid for perpetual care for all five of the Williamson burial sites. 

The compound with the sofa and the masterpiece monument was once a beautiful spot with ornate headstones, statues, trellises and flowers. Now it’s strewn with cigarette butts, used condoms and empty liquor bottles. The sofa is frequently used by vagrants as a place to get drunk and sleep one off. Somebody has scrawled the words, “This is my spot,” on the side of the masterpiece monument that faces the sofa where old William Williamson used to sit watching the artisans carve what has become a near legendary monument to his beloved family.