Christopher Harris "Kit" Williams (December 18, 1798 – November 27, 1857) was an American politician who represented

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...

, thirteenth and

, eleventh districts in the

Biography

Williams was born near

Hillsborough, North Carolina The town of Hillsborough is the county seat of Orange County, North Carolina, United States and is located along the Eno River. The population was 6,087 in 2010, but it grew rapidly to 9,660 by 2020. Its name was unofficially shortened to "Hills ...

, on December 18, 1798. He pursued an academic course and attended the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...

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. He studied law, was admitted to the

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

about 1820, and practiced law. He married Jane Allison on December 9, 1819.

Career

Williams was elected as a Whig to the Twenty-fifth, Twenty-sixth, and Twenty-seventh Congresses by Tennessee's thirteenth district. He served from March 4, 1837 to March 3, 1843. He was an unsuccessful candidate for re-election in 1842 to the Twenty-eighth Congress. After the number of districts held by Tennessee had been reduced, Williams was elected by Tennessee's eleventh district to the Thirty-first and Thirty-second Congresses. He served from March 4, 1849 to March 3, 1853. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1852. He resumed the practice of law in Lexington, Tennessee.

Death

Williams died in Lexington on November 27, 1857. He is interred at Lexington Cemetery. Williams' son and namesake (born 1830) was a Colonel in the Confederate army in the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...

who was killed at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862. His grandson was

John Sharp Williams John Sharp Williams (July 30, 1854September 27, 1932) was a prominent American politician in the United States Democratic Party, Democratic Party from the 1890s through the 1920s, and served as the Minority Leader of the United States House of Re ...

, who also served in the American House and Senate.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Williams, Christopher Harris 1798 births 1857 deaths Whig Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Tennessee 19th-century American politicians People from Lexington, Tennessee