year he sold to Brown a part or share of No. 7 Long Wharf, and 

 on March 24, 1788, he purchased land with a wooden store at 

 State Street and Long Wharf from Benjamin Brown. On June 

 26 he bought the land and store of Joseph Helyer on the north 

 side of Long Wharf. 



Williams engaged in only two more transactions before his 

 death. On March 28, 1790, he mortgaged to Joseph Greene, a 

 merchant, the land with wooden store at the head of Long Wharf 

 on the northeast side of State Street; this mortgage was cancelled 

 on May 29, 1793. On October 1, 1791, he deeded to Benjamin 

 Brown a one-half share or l/48th of all the dockage and wharfage 

 of Long Wharf that appertained to one-half of Lot No. 1, which 

 he had previously purchased from Welles as noted, as well as 

 1/48 th of the proprietor's purchase of Gordon's lands and buildings 

 adjoining the Wharf. 



Williams died on January 15, 1792, at age 44. The administra- 

 tor of his estate was a merchant named Abraham Quincy. By or- 

 der of the Supreme Court, in order to settle his estate, Williams' 

 store building at No. 1 Long Wharf was ordered sold at public 

 auction. Although on the site of the Crown Coffee House, it 

 was a new building erected in 1780 after the Coffee House had 

 burned. The purchaser appears to have been John Osborn, a 

 merchant, because on May 10, 1793, Quincy, Williams' adminis- 

 trator, deeded to Osborn the land with wooden store at Long 

 Wharf on State Street.^°^ 



The only instrument made by Williams which appears to have 

 survived is a Davis backstaff (fig. 49) marked "By Wm. Williams, 

 King Street, Boston, for Malachi Allen, 1768"; this instrument is 

 now in the collection of the Peabody Museum in Salem, Massachu- 

 setts. It is to be noted from this inscription that this instrument 

 was an early example of Williams' work, produced at the age of 

 20, prior to the opening of his shop at the Crown Coffee House. 



In 1770, when Williams opened his shop, the carved sign of 

 "The Little Admiral" (fig. 37) was installed in front of the Crown 

 Coffee House, and Williams' establishment was thereafter desig- 

 nated by this symbol. ^°^ 



In his shop at No. 1 Long Wharf, Williams exercised his crafts 

 of instrument- and clockmaking, and he made and sold a large 



'^^ Land record data from Thwing Catalogue, Massachusetts Historical Society. 

 103 " j^gpQj.^. ^f ^j^g Committee on the Rooms," Proceedi^^gs of the Bostonian 



Society (1917), no. 1, p. 16. 



96 



