Autograph letter signed. 1 page, on folded sheet. 251 x 198 mm. Cohoes. 8th July, 1841. To Messrs [Thomas] Ogden & [Joseph] Fellows. Included is an engraved portrait of Williams 92 x 78 mm., mounted on a piece of stiff paper.

Williams was the son of Thomas Williams, a St. Regis Native American chief and a white woman.  Williams became an Episcopal missionary amongst the Native Americans of New York, particularly the Seneca. He is best remembered for his claim that he was in fact the kidnapped son of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. He mother purportedly admitted that he was in fact adopted, and many people claimed that he did not look like a Native American at all, but rather bore striking resemblance to the Bourbons.

Ogden and Fellows had arranged a treaty and indenture with the Seneca people, where the Seneca agreed to sell their land and move West. Williams writes Ogden & Fellows regarding the honoring of a draft as well as the Seneca council.

“On my arrival at Buffalo I found the Senecas were in Council & their answer to the Secretary of War, it must be satisfactory to the propriators, in whose behalf it would appear, he had written to the Senecas. I trust Gentlemen, you will now at least honor my present draft. I am now from home - among strangers - in a feeble state of health & depending entirely for my future support upon the draft which I am to send you this day.”