George Williams College (Chicago) George Williams College (Chicago) George Williams College was a college located in the northwestern corner of Hyde Park, Chicago. The college was an expansion of a summer camp founded by the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) on the shores of Geneva Lake, Wisconsin in 1886. The college remained in Hyde Park from its founding in 1890 until 1965, when it moved to Downers Grove, Illinois. Subsequently, the Hyde Park campus was demolished in 1989. George Williams College can trace its origin to a summer camp founded on the shores of Geneva Lake, Wisconsin by YMCA leaders I. E. Brown, William
George Williams (YMCA) converted from Anglicanism to Congregationalism. He went to the Zion Congregational Church and became an involved member. In 1841, he went to London and worked again in a draper's shop. After three years, in 1844, was promoted to department manager. He married the boss's daughter, Helen Jane Maunder Hitchcock in 1853. Williams became a member of the Weigh House Congregational Church and used his time for evangelization. Appalled by the terrible conditions in London for young working men, he gathered a group of his fellow drapers together to create a place that would not tempt young men into sin. That