295 King Street - Justus Wright Williams and Nancy Aikman Williams House

The Justus Wright Williams house was built shortly before 1850, when Justus Wright Williams and his wife Nancy Aikman moved in.

Justus Williams and his wife, Nancy Aikman, came to Oakville in 1831. Her sister was the wife of Egerton Ryerson. They bought two lots on Colborne Street, east of Dunn Street and there built a store from where they sold hardware, dry goods and medicines. The family moved to this home on King Street in 1850. Justus Williams helped build the Temperance Hall in 1843 at the corner of Trafalgar Road and Randall Street.

He was in charge of Oakville’s first Board of Health in 1834 and a Trustee of the Oakville Common School in 1836. He became vice president of the Mechanics Institute in 1852. He was Justice of the Peace for Trafalgar Township and, on the incorporation of Oakville as a Town in 1857, he became Town Treasurer, serving in that capacity until his death in 1875 at age 77.

The Williams family came to North America in 1647, settling in the Boston area. Williams College in the US is named after a relative who died in the French and Indian War in 1755. It is the second oldest college in Massachusetts after Harvard. Louisa May Alcott was a relative as were Orville and Wilbur Wright.