Williams, M. J. (Morley Jeffers)

Morley Jeffers Williams was born in Tillsenburg, Ontario, Canada on August 1, 1886. In 1910, twenty-four-year-old Williams attended the engineering school at the University of Toronto for training as a civil engineer. Over the next eleven years, Williams used his engineering degree to work in various construction and agricultural positions such as bridge construction inspector for the Canadian Pacific Railroad and farm overseer. After earning a second degree in horticulture from the Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph, Ontario, Williams became an instructor and student at the Harvard University School of Design.

During a successful academic career in which he was awarded several grants and appointed an assistant professor at Harvard School of Design, Williams began to visit historic sites and make topographic surveys for his own research. He became involved with restoration projects at various sites, and in 1931 the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association (MVLA) contracted Williams to prepare topographic drawings of Mount Vernon for the bicentennial of George Washington’s birth. After Williams completed his work at Mount Vernon, he continued to study the architectural and archaeological elements of George Washington’s estate, in addition to his other projects and responsibilities. In spring 1935, the MVLA again contracted Williams; his task was to restore the Kitchen Garden. By the following winter, the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association hired Williams to be the Director of the new Research and Restoration Department.

During his time as Director of Research and Restoration, Williams uncovered and assisted in the reconstruction and/or restoration of several original structures on-site including the Kitchen Garden, Deer Park Wall, and two Ha-Ha Walls. Williams also helped improve the historic integrity within the Mansion, as he both researched 18th-century material culture and used artifacts found during excavations to ensure the objects placed in the mansion and other site buildings were historically accurate for Mount Vernon. Under Williams’s supervision, the Department of Research and Restoration eventually expanded to oversee the restoration of the Mansion, Tomb, and Gardens, and the development of the Library. In May 1939, the board of the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association decided to discontinue both the Department of Research and Restoration and Williams’s position as department head. Soon thereafter, Williams left Mount Vernon and began his own business conducting architectural and archaeological research.

Throughout the duration of his life, Morley Williams worked at various other historic sites including Tryon Palace in North Carolina. He became a professor of landscape architecture at the North Carolina State College (now University) School of Design, and was later appointed chair of the Landscape Architecture Department. In early 1977, Williams returned to Mount Vernon with his family for a visit and was well received. Approximately 10 months later, Morley Williams died of congestive heart failure.

Morley Williams was a pioneer of rigorous and scholarly study of Mount Vernon, especially on the evolution of the estate landscape. As Director of the Research and Restoration Department, Williams used an interdisciplinary approach to research and restoration, by combining landscape architecture, history, historic preservation, and archaeology. Much of the current understanding of Mount Vernon’s history is based upon the findings of Morley Williams. To this day, Morley Jeffers Williams’s work continues to be an immeasurable asset to the restoration efforts at Mount Vernon.