Background
He was born in Concord, Massachusetts. Graduated at Harvard in 1659. And was minister at Groton from 1663-76, whence he was driven by the Indians during King Philip's War.
He was born in Concord, Massachusetts. Graduated at Harvard in 1659. And was minister at Groton from 1663-76, whence he was driven by the Indians during King Philip's War.
Master of Arts, Harvard, 1659.
Willard was pastor of the Third Church, Boston, from 1678 until his death. He published many sermons. A folio volume, A Compleat Body of Divinity, was published posthumously in 1726.
Willard's parents were Major Simon Willard and Mary Sharpe, who had emigrated from England to New England in 1634, settling first in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After the death of his mother, his father remarried twice, and Samuel was one of seventeen children born to the family. In 1663, Willard began preaching in Groton, then at the very frontier of the Massachusetts Bay 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. 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. 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. Willard was the acting president of Harvard College, although having the nominal title of vice-president, from 1701 until his death in 1707.
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. 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).
Married Abigail Sherman, August 8, 1664. Married second, Eunice Tyng, July 29, 1679.