Willard, Samuel

Samuel Willard (January 31, 1640-September 12, 1707) was born in Concord, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University in 1659, and was ordained a Puritan minister in Groton, Massachusetts in 1664, where he served as pastor until 1676. He was pastor of the Third Church in Boston from 1678-1707. In 1664 he married Abigail Sherman of Watertown, Massachusetts. Willard strenuously opposed the Salem witchcraft trials, and tried to influence public opinion against them. He served as acting president of Harvard from 1701, and he published many sermons; a folio volume entitled A Compleat Body of Divinity was published posthumously in 1726.

Samuel Willard, presumably of Connecticut, wrote to a brother in Ashford, Connecticut, and to another gentleman in Stafford, Connecticut . The tone of the correspondence implies that Mr. Willard was in some sort of legal difficulty but it is not clear what his specific problems were.