Dave,

The Wiliams family were among the early settlers in Brown County. In 1856, John Williams established a ranch which later became the popular community of Williams Ranch, near the present town of Mullin Texas. It is located in Mills County today but was in Brown County until the county lines were redrawn about 1886. As early as 1856, a Texas Ranger named Capt. John Williams had a company bivouac at Bowser Bend in San Saba County, at Keys Crossing on the Colorado River, just across the river from Brown County. Not much is known about Capt. John Williams except that he was later killed in San Saba County by Indians while taking his cattle to water.

Bill Williams, the son of rancher John Williams, settled with his family in the sparsely populated northwestern part of Brown County in 1872. In December 1873, while Bill Williams and his son were cutting timber for their cabin, Jim Williams wife and infant daughter was murdered and a ten year old daughter was carried into captivity by Big Foot and several renagede Kiowa Indians. Big Foot's band was part of a larger raiding party led by Lone Wolf. Capt.William Jeff Maltby and a company of Texas Rangers eventually caught Big Foot and his band and killed them. The body of Jim Willimas' daughter was found by surveyors hanging from a tree in Calahan County. In 1873 and 1874, Lone Wolf and a large party of Kiowa Indians were raiding through the west Texas frontier from their Kiowa land in north Texas. Lone Wolf was on his way to Edwards County to retrieve the body of his son who was killed in a battle at Kickapoo Springs with the 4th U.S. Cavalry from Fort Clark.