Source:  Akron and Summit County, Ohio 1825-1928 - Vol. III - Illustrated - Publ. Chicago & Akron.  The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co. - 1928 - Page 344

Source:  Akron and Summit County, Ohio 1825-1928 - Vol. III - Illustrated - Publ. Chicago & Akron.  The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co. - 1928 - Page 36

CHARLES E. WILLIAMS.     Charles E. Williams, president of the Williams Tire Company, is numbered among those who have put Akron on the map and have given her prestige as a manufacturing center.  His record is one of notable achievement.  He has earned the proud American title of a self-made man and what he has accomplished should serve to inspire and encourage others, showing what may be done when industry does not fear to follow the path that opportunity points out.  Mr. Williams was born in Akron, Apr. 12, 1887, a son of William and Mary (Prince) Williams, the former born on Lake Erie, Ohio, and the latter in Stark county, this state.  The father filled the office of sheriff of Summit county for many years and was greatly feared by the lawbreakers and much respected by those who hold themselves amenable to law, for he never hesitated in the faithful performance of his duties, which he discharged without fear or favor.  In subsequent years he became identified with a soft drinks industry which he established and which has grown to large proportions under the name of the Coca Cola Bottling Company.  He continued to conduct the business to the time of his death, which occurred in November, 1917, when he was fifty-eight years of age.  The business is still carried on by his son and namesake, William Williams.  The mother survives and yet makes her home in Akron.
     No event of special importance occurred to vary the routine of life for Charles E. Williams in his youthful days.  He attended the public schools and in due time was graduated from the high school, having previously successfully mastered the work of the various grades.  He next became a student in the University of Akron.  The Akron Real Estate News, writing of him, said: Mr. Williams began his career in the world of rubber fourteen years ago with the B. F. Goodrich Company.  He saw opportunity after he was with the manufacturer to open a small tire and tube store in Denver, Colorado.  He put plenty of hard work behind his little venture and it thrived.  For two years he operated the store in the Rocky Mountain capital.  It was day and night work, and at first he was buyer, salesman, repairman, bookkeeper, janitor and what-not.  Later, as the volume of business increased pleasantly, he was able to employ help.  Along in 1917 some Akron men heard of Mr. Williams and his success in Denver.  They wanted to form a company to sell tires direct to dealer and consumer.  Thus came into being The Rubber City Clearing House, and Mr. Williams, with his usual diligence and skill, made it a very successful institution. He sold his first tire for The Rubber City Company on Mar. 17, 1917, and continued at its helm until the latter part of 1919.  During his guidance of the Rubber City outfit it thrived and prospered enormously.  Its growth was solid and substantial.  In fact, the business as he handled it necessitated much larger quarters. It was decided to erect a building, and such was done.  Curiously enough, that structure is the one Mr. Williams occupies today.  After he had created a profitable business for the Rubber City company there came a disagreement as to policies and methods, and Mr. Williams found himself out of the company.  He had no control over its destinies, and except that he had worked without stint to make it successful, hadn't done much else to it.  Some of Mr. Williams' friends thought it strange that he should be ousted from the company after he had put it on the business map in no uncertain manner.   But Mr. Williams had no comment to make and did not offer criticism.  He was too busy keeping going!  Within a very short period he was back in business - this time as The Williams-Akron Tire Company, with offices and warerooms in the Taplin-Rice-Clerkin building in South Broadway.  'You can't keep a good man down,' said his friends.  Mr. Williams' only reply was that this new venture was going to be one owned, controlled and operated by Charley Williams so that there would be no more losses incurred by his being 'let out' by men with whom he was associated.  It was in this next business that Mr. Williams began, more than ever, to secure and hold the confidence and respect of thousands of dealers all over the country and many individual consumers as well.  People touring would stop in Akron just to 'look him over.'  Friends of theirs, or mutual friends, or perhaps dealers, had told the home-town folks that they should get acquainted with Charley Williams in Akron.  So they began to drop in, in increasingly great numbers.  They're still doing that today, too, and never a business day passes but what Mr. Williams has been visited by one or more of car-owners from various sections of the United States, Canada or Mexico.  Dealers come to the big tire headquarters as well, and place large orders.  But it is doubtful, so his business friends say, if  'Charley' is any more pleased with a several thousand dollar order than he is to have some man from a distant point come in and tell him how well the Williams tires are 'holding up.'   Today "Williams of Akron" is known throughout the length and breadth of the land.  The company occupies a modern fireproof building of four stories and basement, containing more than seventy thousand square feet of floor space, at Nos. 1021 to 1029 South High street.  It is the visible and substantial evidence of the splendid success of the founder and promoter of the business, who within a period of six years has personally sold tires to the amount of more than seven million dollars, and every tire marketed by him carries not only the guarantee of the manufacturer but is also backed by his personal word.  When he started in business dealers were waiting to take his product because of their unlimited confidence in him, and from the beginning the Williams tubes and Williams cords have been as readily received by the consumer as by the distributor.  Today Mr. Williams is known as the largest individual buyer of add lots and surplus stocks of tires and rubber goods in the country.   He has the well earned reputation of knowing rubber thoroughly as well as knowing the selling end of the business, and his success rests upon the slogan "Built on a National Reputation for Honesty and Service."  The company not only handles Williams cords and tubes but also controls many exclusive specialties and novelties pertaining to rubber.  His success is far beyond the wildest dreams of his youth, for he is today the sole owner of the Williams Tire Company, doing an annual business that is represented in seven figures.  What he undertakes he accomplishes.  In his vocabulary there is no such word as fail, and obstacles and difficulties in his path have seemed but to serve as an impetus for renewed effort on his part.  He is alive - alive to every opportunity, to every advantage, to the needs and to the demands of the time -  and because of this he has developed a business that reaches out to every section of the continent.  He is a member of the Akron City Club, the Fairlawn Country Club and the Akron Chamber of Commerce.
Source:  Akron and Summit County, Ohio 1825-1928 - Vol. II - Illustrated - Publ. Chicago & Akron.  The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co. - 1928 - Page 126

HENRY EVAN WILLIAMS.    It was recognition of superior talent that made Henry Evan Williams known as "America's greatest tenor and the world's greatest lyric tenor."  In almost every section of the globe his magnificent voice gave pleasure to thousands of hearers and at all times he used his gift of song for the benefit and pleasure of his fellowmen, little regarding the pecuniary returns that it brought him.  Akron has had many notable captains of industry but has had only one Evan Williams, and he, more than all others, has made Akron known to the world.   His birth occurred at Mineral Ridge, Ohio, Sept. 7, 1867, his parents being David and Gwendolyn (Harris) Williams.  He attended the schools of Summit county and at the age of eighteen years began working in the shops of Webster, Camp & Lane, there learning the machinist's trade.  As a child he sang in all local entertainments, none being regarded complete without his name appearing on the program.  But it was not until after he attained his majority that he had the opportunity to cultivate his great talent.  He was a youth of seventeen when he sang at a Welsh eisteddfod in Akron.  Among his auditors on that occasion was Mrs. Henry Perkins, who immediately recognized his great gift and encouraged him to begin voice culture.  He continued to work at the machinist's trade through the week, singing on Sundays in the Methodist church choir.  When he was twenty years of age he was married on the 18th of October, 1887, at Thomastown, Ohio, to Miss Margaret Jane Morgan, and to his wife, more than to any other one person, Mr. Williams owed his success, for she shared with him uncomplainingly in all of the hardships and the sacrifices which it was necessary to make in order to secure his musical education and at all times she was his inspiration.  He was about twenty-two years of age when Madame Louise Vbon Feilitzsch, a vocal teacher of Cleveland, heard him sing and induced him to go to Cleveland to study.  She instructed him for four years and on the expiration of that period he went to New York city, where he continued his studies under James Savage, one of the most famous vocal teachers of that period.  While thus pursuing his own musical education he sang as soloist in All Angels church for a number of years and afterward in the Marble Collegiate church on Fifth avenue in New York, at which time he was the highest paid church singer in the world.  During all this period his services were in such constant demand in the concert field that in order to keep his concert engagements he was obliged eventually to give up his church work.  His first outstanding success - that which really brought him world fame - came when he appeared in connection with the Worcester (Massachusetts) festival.  For twenty-seven years he was before the public as the leading American tenor, singing in oratorios and concerts, being widely regarded as the world's greatest oratorio singer.  He sang with all the notable orchestras of America and of England and was in constant demand on both continents.  He lived in London for three years, but he always regarded Akron as his home, and it is remarkable that his fellow townsmen never heard "their own Evan Williams" sing with a great orchestra, yet his last public appearance was when he gave a concert in Akron.
     On one occasion, when he landed in England, Landen Rolland, conductor of the great London Orchestra, was at the dock and there played the "Star Spangled Banner" as a welcoming salute to Mr. Williams.  At that time he toured England, Scotland and Ireland, singing in ten of the great musical festivals, and he also sang in many notable festivals in Wales, which was the home of his ancestors.  He possessed the most beautiful lyric voice the world has ever known and no one was ever more generous in giving of his talent to his audiences.  Moreover, he was the first entertainer to offer his services for the entertainment of the soldiers during the World war, and notwithstanding he was booked for more than one hundred recitals, he sang for the soldiers in every cantonment to which he was sent.  In fact it was his too great generosity in this regard that caused his demise.  He placed too great a strain upon himself in meeting the appointments for musical entertainments for the soldiers, added to the strain which he felt in having two of his own sons in the service.
     All through the years Mrs. Williams had shared with him in his struggles, his privations, his hardships of the earlier years, his notable triumphs and successes of later life.  Mrs. Williams is a daughter of Levi and Anne (Williams) Morgan and is the mother of four children: Thomas Vernon, who married Alberta Price and has one daughter, Margaret Bernett; Edgar Morgan, who wedded Grace Dick and who has two daughters, Adrianne and Marmian; H. Evan Williams, Jr., who married Miss Fredda Slater and has a son, H. Evans (III); and Gwendolyn Anne.
     Mr. Williams held membership in the First Baptist church of Akron and was a Knight Templar Mason and Shriner.  His last appearance at the Cincinnati festival was in 1918.  A few days later he gave a recital in the armory at Akron, and this was his last public appearance.  He died May 24, 1918, when at the zenith of his powers.  He had made the world richer and better through the exercise of his wonderful talent and he had the adulation of an admiring and appreciative audience wherever he went.  A whole world mourned his death, cablegrams and telegrams being received from the lowly and the great from all sections of the globe.  In 1908 he was requested to drill the Tuesday Musical Club chorus of Akron for the purpose of competing at the Welsh eistedfodd held at Canton, Ohio, that year and through his superb leadership won the first prize of six hundred and fifty dollars for the club.  At his passing the Beacon-Journal said editorially: "Akron could easier have spared half a dozen millionaires than Evan Williams, for no half dozen men could have done more for the people of the nation than he.  That wonderful voice is stilled.  That wonderful buoyant spirit has gone.  But in another sense and a very true sense the voice and the spirit that actuated it and governed it will still spread happiness and comfort and helpfulness throughout the world on down through the years wherever the genius of modern invention has reached and will reach.  Evan Williams will live in the homes of the people and the hearts of the people, calling to those finer things of the spirit, comforting against the buffeting of the world and of fate, inspiring to the finer things of life.  A lovable genius, Evan Williams could not help singing any more than a bird.  It was self expression.  That his singing gave pleasure to others was a source of great pleasure to him; that it brought material comfort and the good things of the world to his door was only incidental.  He felt the world was good to him.  It had heaped honors on him, had crowded to hear him, had applauded him and brought him wealth and fame.  He felt the world placed him under an obligation.   But the obligation was all the other way and can never be repaid.  The services he rendered are beyond computation and are incapable of measurement by our human standards of measurement.  His career was one of the great romances of music, for starting life without any advantages, he made for himself a conspicuous place in musical circles and became known as the world's greatest lyric tenor."
     Mr. Williams was laid to rest in East Akron cemetery and on his monument appears this beautiful inscription:

"God drew near to his children through
  The singing heart of Evan Williams.
  A world that laughs and loves and sings
  Has enshrined the memory of this
  Gentle soul whose song restored
  And brightened the deep places."
Source:  Akron and Summit County, Ohio 1825-1928 - Vol. II - Illustrated - Publ. Chicago & Akron.  The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co. - 1928 - Page 346

Source:  Akron and Summit County, Ohio 1825-1928 - Vol. III - Illustrated - Publ. Chicago & Akron.  The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co. - 1928 - Page 652

Source:  Akron and Summit County, Ohio 1825-1928 - Vol. III - Illustrated - Publ. Chicago & Akron.  The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co. - 1928 - Page 74

Source:  Akron and Summit County, Ohio 1825-1928 - Vol. III - Illustrated - Publ. Chicago & Akron.  The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co. - 1928 - Page 436