Press, this paragraph is fairly representative:
"The general idea of Mr. Williamson was plainly that he was a miser; that he lived for the sake of money-getting, denying himself all luxuries, and even many comforts; that until the great project of his industrial school was formed and the trust deeds given to the trustees his charities were few; and that he lived a lonely, crabbed life, loving no one and loved by only a few. His intimate friends deny all such assertions, and point to the fact that he had given nearly a million and a half to charities and institutions since 1876, as a complete refutation of such statements. It is known also that his heart was one of the tenderest, and his nature genial. He had a streak of humor in him, but his religious propensities were never prominent."
The newspapers printed a number of amusing stories, to illustrate his so-called "miserliness" in the last few years of his life, most of which were either untrue or grossly exaggerated, and insofar as true were merely eccentricities of what was really a lovable old age. He was pictured as a little, weasened old man, walking slowly through the streets
