Frank Williams was born in
Richmond, Rhode Island, in 1940, "the grandson of Italian immigrant parents." He graduated from
Cranston East High School,
Boston University and
Boston University School of Law, and he received a master's degree in taxation from
Bryant University. From 1962 to 1967, he served as a
captain in the
U.S. Army and was stationed in
West Germany and
South Vietnam. His military awards include the
Combat Infantryman Badge and
Bronze Star Medal, three
Air Medals and the
Army Commendation Medal, the
National Defense Service Medal,
Vietnam Service Medal with two campaign stars the
Republic of Vietnam Cross of Gallantry with silver citation star and
Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal for his military service. Williams served as a delegate to the
1986 Rhode Island Constitutional Convention. He served as town moderator of
Richmond, Rhode Island, and town solicitor. Governor
Lincoln Almond appointed Williams to the Supreme Court in 1995. He was elevated to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 2001.
Beach access ruling Williams ruled in a 1997 case involving public access to the Narragansett Town Beach. including
Lincoln the Unknown by
Andrew Carnegie and the multi-volume
Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and
The War Years by
Carl Sandburg. This eventually grew into a collection of thousands of books, documents, pieces of artwork, and other items that he kept in his home library. Williams was president of the
Abraham Lincoln Association, the Lincoln Group of Boston, and the Ulysses S. Grant Association, and was a member of the
Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. After disputes within the Abraham Lincoln Association prompted Williams,
Harold Holzer, and others to leave the group in the mid-1990s, Williams and Holzer co-founded The Lincoln Forum, and Williams served for 23 years as its chairman; he is now that organization's chairman emeritus. In 2005, Williams received The Lincoln Forum's
Richard Nelson Current Award of Achievement. In 2010, Williams was elected to the board of the
Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation. He is an Associate Companion of the
Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, an organization founded by Union officers who served during the American Civil War. Williams was inducted as a Laureate of
The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the State's highest honor) by the Governor of Illinois in 2009 as a Bicentennial Laureate. In 2017, he and his wife Virginia donated their collection of Lincoln- and Civil War-related books and other materials to
Mississippi State University. The collection, now known as The Frank and Virginia Williams Collection of Lincolniana, is subdivided into two collections: The Lincoln Book and Pamphlet Collection, and the Civil War/Collateral Book and Pamphlet Collection. Earlier, while president of the Ulysses S. Grant Association, Williams had been involved in efforts to move Grant's papers to Mississippi State from
Southern Illinois University. While on the Rhode Island Supreme Court, Williams estimated that he had used in his rulings 100 quotes attributed to Lincoln. He is the co-editor of the following essay collections: ''Abraham Lincoln, Esq.: The Legal Career of America's Greatest President
; The Mary Lincoln Enigma: Historians on America's Most Controversial First Lady
; Exploring Lincoln: Great Historians Reappraise Our Greatest President
; The Living Lincoln
; The Lincoln Assassination Riddle: Revisiting the Crime of the Nineteenth Century
; and The Lincoln Assassination: Crime and Punishment, Myth and Memory''.
Later career Frank J. Williams stepped down from the Rhode Island Supreme Court at the end of December 2009 and has lectured at several universities and institutes, most notably at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at
Saint Anselm College. Williams is also an accomplished amateur chef, and appeared as a guest on the cooking show,
Ciao Italia, with
Mary Ann Esposito. ==References==