Everything about Samuel Willard totally explained
Reverend Samuel Willard (
January 31,
1640-
September 12,
1707) was a
Colonial clergyman. He was born in
Concord,
Massachusetts; graduated at
Harvard in
1659; and was minister at
Groton from
1663 to
1676, whence he was driven by the Indians during
King Philip's War.
The Reverend Willard was
pastor of the
Third Church,
Boston, from
1678 until his death. He strenuously opposed the
witchcraft trials, and served as acting president of
Harvard from
1701. The Reverend Willard published many sermons; a folio volume entitled
A Compleat Body of Divinity was published posthumously in
1726.
Early life
Willard's parents were merchant Simon Willard and Mary Sharpe, who had emigrated from England to New England in
1634, settling first in Cambridge. In
1635, with Rev.
Peter Bulkley, they helped establish the town of
Concord, Massachusetts, where Samuel was born the sixth child and second son. After the death of his mother, his father remarried twice, and Samuel was one of seventeen children born to the family.
At the age of fifteen, Willard entered
Harvard College in 1655, graduating in
1659, and was the only member of his class to receive an
M.A.
Ministry in Groton
In
1663, Willard began preaching in
Groton, Massachusetts, then at the very frontier of the Massachusetts colony. The town's first minister, John Miller, had become ill, and when he died, the congregation asked Willard to stay, and he was officially ordained by them in
1664.
On
August 8,
1664, Willard married Abigail Sherman of
Watertown, MA, and in
1670 he became a
freeman, with full privileges of citizenship.
In
1671, a 16-year-old girl in town, Elizabeth Knapp, fell ill and appeared to be possessed. Willard wrote about the strange behavior.
Groton was destroyed on
March 10,
1676, during
King Philip's War, and the 300 residents abandoned the town. Willard and his family removed to
Charlestown, Massachusetts.
Ministry in Boston
Willard preached at Boston's
Third Church during the illness of Rev.
Thomas Thacher and gave an election-day sermon on June 5. The Third Church called Willard to be its Teacher, an associate pastor, on
April 10,
1678. When Thacher died on
October 15, Willard became their only pastor. Members of the congregation included a variety of influential members of the colony: John Hull,
Samuel Sewall,
Edward Rawson,
Thomas Brattle,
Joshua Scottow, Hezekiah Usher, and Capt. John Alden (the son of
John and
Priscilla Alden of Plymouth). His wife Abigail died sometime in the first half of
1679; in
July of that year he married Eunice Tyng, a possible sister-in-law of
Joseph Dudley.
Leading Harvard
Willard was the acting president of
Harvard, although having the nominal title of vice-president, from
1701 until his death in
1707.
Works by Samuel Willard
Further Information
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