Kate Winter's biography of Marietta Holley (_Marietta Holley: Life with
"Josiah Allen's Wife_," Syracuse, NY: Syracuse UP, 1984) mentions that
Williams was an
alcoholic, and his alcoholism was a source of anguish to Holley, who
crusaded against demon rum in the comic Samantha Allen novels that
Williams illustrated.  (It seems that Williams often missed his deadlines.)

                                        Gregg Camfield