Quarter-length studio portrait of Eleazer Williams. View the original photo here: WHI 93231. 

Eleazer Williams was an Indian missionary born mixed Indian-white parentage in Sault St. Louis, Quebec, Canada.

Early Life

He was trained for missionary work at Longmeadow, Massachusetts and attended Dartmouth College. Williams was born a Catholic, educated as a Congregationalist and joined the Episcopal Church in 1815. Here was ordained a deacon in 1826 and was allowed to do missionary work among the Oneida Indians in New York.

Indian Relations

Eleazer Williams was a gifted leader and he envisaged an Indian empire west of Lake Michigan under his rule. In 1821 he accompanied a delegation of New York Indians to Green Bay where the eastern tribesmen effected a cession of land from the Menominee and Winnebago on the Fox River. In 1822 Williams established his home there, strengthening his claim to a tract at Little Rapids through marriage to a Menominee of mixed blood. However the Indians eventually repudiated his leadership and Williams began his pretensions that he was the "Lost Dauphin" of France, Louis XVII. Later he claimed that Prince de Joinville, son of King Louis Philippe, asked him to sign an abdication at Green Bay in 1841.

Late Life

In the early 1850's he became an open pretender. He tricked his mother into signing an affidavit that he was an adopted son and issued manifestoes. Williams promised his friends many royal favors when his wrong had been righted. However he was doomed to defeat and he died in poverty and obscurity at Hogansburg, N.Y. Many years later, his remains were reinterred at Duck Creek, near Green Bay. 

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Eleazer Williams

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]