Lewis Williams (1786–1842), public official, was born in Surry County, North Carolina, and graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1808. He served as a tutor there, 1810–12, and as a university trustee, 1813–42. Williams represented Surry County for two terms in the North Carolina General Assembly, 1813–14, and sat in the United States House of Representatives from 1815 until his death in Washington. He supported William H. Crawford’s 1824 presidential candidacy and was in the opposition during the administrations of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. Williams chaired the claims committee for several sessions, and thanks to his lengthy congressional service he was nicknamed the “Father of the House” (William S. Powell, ed., Dictionary of North Carolina Biography [1979–96], 6:211; Sketches of the History of the University of North Carolina, together with a Catalogue of Officers and Students, 1789–1889 [1889], 70, 80, 232; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, 24 Feb. 1842).

Williams’s enclosure, not found, may have been a copy of his 8–9 Jan. 1821 speech in Congress favoring a reduction of the army. On 23 Jan. the House of Representatives passed a bill to that effect, which became law on 2 Mar. 1821 as “An Act to reduce and fix the military peace establishment of the United States” (Annals description begins Annals of the Congress of the United States: The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States … Compiled from Authentic Materials, Washington, D.C., Gales & Seaton, 1834–56, 42 vols. (All editions are undependable and pagination varies from one printing to another. Citations given below are to the edition mounted on the American Memory website of the Library of Congress and give the date of the debate as well as page numbers.) description ends , 16th Cong., 2d sess., 767–94, 936–7; U.S. Statutes at Large description begins Richard Peters, ed., The Public Statutes at Large of the United States … 1789 to March 3, 1845, 1845–67, 8 vols. description ends , 3:615–6).