WILLIAMS, ELEAZAR ( 1787-1858). An American missionary, who claimed to be the `lost dauphin' (Louis XVII.) of France. He was horn probably in Caughnawaga, N. Y., and is supposed to have been the great-grandson of Eunice Williams, who was carried away from Deerfield, Mass., at the time of the massacre of February, 1704. Eleazar was educated at Long Meadow and Westhampton, Mass. At the out break of the War of 1S12 he was superintendent in the Northern Indian Department, served with the American troops, and was wounded at Plattsburg. Subsequently he took orders in the Episcopal Church and became a missionary among the New York Indians. In 1820 he accompanied the Oneidas, who were removed from New York State to a reservation near Green Bay, Wis., and remained there with them for thirty years. A rather striking likeness to the Bourbons, coupled with the fact that there were some discrepan cies in the accounts of his early years. probably gave rise to the story that he was the 'lost dauphin,' the soil of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, whose fate was shrouded in mystery.
Williams had a strong imagination and he prob ably exaggerated the rather weak evidence in behalf of his assertion until he really believed its truth. His claim that. in 1841, he had an interview with the Prince de Joinville, then in America, who asked him to sign an 'abdi cation' of the French throne was subsequently denied by the Prince. In 1850 he returned to New York and settled at llogansburg, where lie died. For a statement of his claim consult an article by Ilanson in Put nam's Magazine for February, 1853, entitled "Ilave We a Bourbon Among Usr also The Lost Prince (1851 ), by the same author. Williams was an authority on Indian language and history, and I Spe//ing Book in the Language of Dm Seven Iroquois Nations (1813) ; A Caution our Common Enemy (1513, in Iroquois; translated into English 1815) ; Life of Te-hu-ra gma-ne-gen (Thomas \Villiams) (1859), a sketch of his reputed father, the grandson of Eunice Williams. Ile translated into Iroquois The Book of Common Prayer (1853).