Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Richardson, William Adams, 1821–96, American jurist and U.S. secretary of the Treasury, b. Tyngsboro, Mass. Admitted to the bar in 1846, he helped to codify the statute law of Massachusetts in 1855....

(Encyclopedia) Phips, Sir William, 1651–95, American colonial governor. Born in what is today Maine, he was a carpenter and shipbuilder in Boston and became interested in sunken treasure. On his second hunt for tr...

(Encyclopedia) Colby, William Egan, 1920–96, American public official, b. St. Paul, Minn., grad. Princeton, 1940. During World War II he served in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and in 1944 was dropped by ...

(Encyclopedia) Kunstler, William Moses, 1919–95, American lawyer, b. New York City, grad. Yale (1941), Columbia law school (1948). Flamboyant and often brilliant, Kunstler defended the unpopular and unfailingly su...

(Encyclopedia) Rosecrans, William Starke rōzˈkrănz [key], 1819–98, Union general in the American Civil War, b. Kingston, Ohio. He served in the army from 1842 to 1854 and in Apr., 1861, rejoined as a volunteer....

(Encyclopedia) Faulkner, William, 1897–1962, American novelist, b. New Albany, Miss., one of the great American writers of the 20th cent. Born into an old Southern family named Falkner, he changed the spelling of ...

(Encyclopedia) King, William Lyon Mackenzie, 1874–1950, Canadian political leader, b. Kitchener, Ont.; grandson of William Lyon Mackenzie. An expert on labor questions, he served in Wilfrid Laurier's Liberal admin...

(Encyclopedia) Fitzwilliam, William Wentworth Fitzwilliam, 2d Earl, 1748–1833, British administrator. Sent to Ireland as lord lieutenant in 1795, he expressed sympathy for the cause of Catholic Emancipation and wa...

(Encyclopedia) William I, 1797–1888, emperor of Germany (1871–88) and king of Prussia (1861–88), second son of the future King Frederick William III of Prussia and Louise of Mecklenburg. Essentially conservati...

(Encyclopedia) Taft, William Howard, 1857–1930, 27th President of the United States (1909–13) and 10th chief justice of the United States (1921–30), b. Cincinnati. Taft retired from public life and taught ...