Eleazer Williams

Who was Eleazer Williams?

Eleazer Williams was a Canadian clergyman and missionary.

He was born in Sault St. Louis, Quebec, Canada, the son of Thomas Williams, and was educated at Dartmouth College. In 1815, Williams joined the Episcopal Church, after which he performed missionary work with the Oneida people of upstate New York. He accompanied a delegation of these Native Americans to Green Bay, Wisconsin in 1821, where they sought a cession of land from the Menominee and Winnebago. The following year Williams made his home there and was married to a Menominee woman named Madeleine Jourdain. In 1826 he was ordained a deacon.

In 1839 and afterwards, Williams began to make the claim that he was the French Lost Dauphin. During the 1850s he openly became a pretender, but he died in poverty at Hogansburg, New York.