Samuel Willard

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. 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,...