Willis, Robert, approximately 1713-1791

Robert Willis was a Quaker minister from New Jersey born about 1713. He married young, and after a period of religious searching he joined the Society of Friends in his twenties. Willis began taking steps towards the ministry in 1758, and after his wife's death in 1759 he devoted himself to religious activities. He spent much of the rest of his life as a traveling minister, mostly but not exclusively in the Mid-Atlantic area. In 1770 he set out for the British Islands, and spent the next four years in England, Scotland, and Ireland, returning to North America in 1774. He died in April of 1791.