was his fortune to deserve
and gain a wider celebrity. He was his father's oldest son, and in the
year succeeding his birth, his home was changed to the mouth of the
Conococheague Creek, in Frederick, near Washington county. In that
beautiful region of country, watered by the stream that lends its name
to the valley, were spent the few short years of his boyhood. There he
learned to love the aspect of fields and groves, the memory of which
was his solace long after, in many dark and trying hours, for we find in
the midst of the toils of the camp, that his spirit yearns for rural
peace and solitude. The love of nature is ever ennobling; it perhaps
contributed to form the character of the future hero.

It is a favorite theme with biographers to dwell on parental precepts,
especially on those of the mother. We have no anecdotes of this period,
but we may yield to a happy idea, and imagine young Williams listening
to the accents of a mother's lip, with the true deference which he
always paid to goodness. We may see him, among his little playmates on
his father's farm, already showing those traits of character, which
guided him in the path to honor: that love of truth, that physical and
moral courage, which won in time the confidence of his great
commander-in-chief, who had himself early shone in the same qualities.
We may picture him crossing the fields, at early morning hours, to the
rustic school, there to recite the simple lesson, and to be instructed
in his mother tongue, which he afterwards used with the grace of a
scholar. But the sunshine of his boyhood was soon clouded--his father,
Joseph Williams, died, leaving but a small property to seven children;
and Otho at the age of thirteen, was thrown upon his own exertions. He
was placed with his brother-in-law, Mr. Ross, in the Clerk's Office of
Frederick county. Here he remained several years, diligently occupied in
studying the duties of the bureau, and when he was duly qualified, took
charge of it himself, for a while, until removed to a similar situation
in Baltimore. It was in this vocation that he acquired those habits of
regularity and method, which were so signally manifested when called to
situations of the highest trust.

His appearance at this time, when about eighteen years of age, is thus
described by his friend and fellow-soldier, Gen. Samuel Smith: "He was,"
says the writer, "about six feet high, elegantly formed; his whole
appearance and conduct much bey