Two of Stephen’s siblings were killed along with his mother Eunice, who had just given birth and whose “strength of body began to fail her” after falling into the waters of the Green River.
However, this was short-lived as Stephen was again held captive at Fort St. Francois (east of Montreal) where “he suffered much among the Indians”, and whipped by Jesuits attempting to convert him to Catholicism.
Following his release from captivity, Williams resumed his formal education, and in 1709, was admitted as an undergraduate to Harvard College at the age of sixteen.
In a small freshman class of six students, Williams studied a typical curriculum of Greek, Hebrew, logic, ethics, politics, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, declamation, and divinity.
[7] Throughout his early years as minister, Williams was confronted with an extraordinary number of issues ranging from nagging physical illnesses, witchcraft, building his permanent house, property disputes, disciplining his slaves and servants, and fear of “Indian mischief.”[8] He was an advocate of the singing of psalms, which was not a widely received practice in the western part of Massachusetts.
He also conducted catechisms on a regular basis—a practice which was reserved for “every father to teach his children.”[9] The Puritan church had undergone a transformative change in the way its membership was defined.
Following his graduation from Harvard, he was reported by Reverend Thomas Clap of Windham, Connecticut, of having Arminian ideas—too radical for the established Congregational church.
[12] The battle came to a climax during a Hampshire Association meeting, where charges were leveled at Breck by Thomas Clap, who accused him of preaching heretical and subversive ideas.
Although Stephen Williams was not directly harmed by defending Breck’s ordination, he cast his lot with the other ‘river gods’ along political lines.
Perry Miller described it as a “Lockean psychology because word spread about how ordinary people could acquire conversion merely through an idea derived from experience.”[15] Stephen Williams’ diaries are peppered with accounts of his cousin Jonathan Edwards, (who shared blood lines along their mother’s side), being invited to preach in Longmeadow, and Williams travelling to East Windsor, Connecticut, to do the same for Edwards’ father Timothy.
In a glimpse of what was to become the First Great Awakening (1740–1743), twenty-four year old Stephen Williams witnessed the ‘harvest of souls’ after observing his grandfather, the Rev.
I hope and pray such interchanging may be of reall service to our people as well as ease to us de [sic:deity].”[17] There is little doubt that Stephen Williams became an ardent supporter of religious revivalism.
On October 20, Williams travelled with Whitefield to Westfield, Massachusetts, and Suffield, Connecticut, where he heard him “preach to great auditory-he is a warm fervent preacher- has an inimitable faculty of touching ye affections & passions.”[21] Religious conversion now seemed to parallel Edwards’ view of being “centered in the emotions” as unorthodox expressions of public tears, laughter, shouting, and shaking became commonplace.
During the French and Indian War (1755–1763), Stephen Williams was again summoned to serve as chaplain in July 1755, and was stationed at Lake Champlain at Fort Crown Point.
Longmeadow, itself, was a quartering town for troops heading north and south during the Revolution, yet a small group of radicals dressed as Indians drew Williams’ condemnation.
The revolutionaries staged their own ‘tea party’ by ransacking the general store of ‘Marchant’ Colton, spilling out flour, sugar, and nails.
Toward the end of the war, Williams became more sympathetic toward the American cause of liberty, and often prayed for the local men involved in the battles with the British.
"Diaries of Reverend Williams:1716-1782 (Longmeadow: MA: Board of Selectmen, Project#21276 Under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration, 1938) Williams, Stephen West.
(Toronto: George J. McLeod, Ltd., 1949) Morgan, Edmund S. "The Puritan Family: Religion & Domestic Relations in Seventeenth Century New England."