Just after his birth, he and his parents moved to Jackson, Ohio. As his father was owner and editor of the "Jackson Standard Journal", he grew up around writing, printing, and editing. In high school he worked for the "Journal", doing grunt work in the beginning and eventually writing and editing. He attended Dartmouth College and upon graduation in 1910 was offered a job teaching English at a boys school in Connecticut. He telegraphed his father seeking career advice, but his handwriting was terrible and the telegraph company clerk mistook "teaching" for "traveling", and the father, not wanting his son to become a traveling businessman, advised him not to take the job. Richard Cary says it later saved Williams from "a purgatory of grading endless, immature English 'themes'" and propelled him "toward a career as one of the most popular storytellers of his time".