This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Willard, Webb, Atkinson, Davie Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/Wh.2ADE/1831 Message Board Post: From "History of Alexander, Union and Pulaski Counties", edited by William Henry Perrin, O. L. Baskin & Co., Chicago, 1883, pages 291-294. ================ ELIJAH WILLARD came to Union County in the year 1820, a poor boy with a scanty education, and he was the only support of his widowed mother and three small children. The coming of this family was the most valuable acquisition to the community it probably ever made. At a glance, this boy realized the imperative wants of a rude people, and he laid the foundations of society upon which have been reared the structure we behold today. He was the architect and founder that converted an almost unorganized and ignorant gathering of trappers and hunters into a commercial and agricultural community, with all the arts and science of a splendid civilization. Before Elijah Willard came, the people hunted game for food, and exchanged peltries and honey for the few articles of commerce that were necessary to their simple, scanty lives. He saw that highways to the world's market were the only road to the change that must be brought among the people, and he therefore obtained leave and built the turnpike across the bottom to the river, and opened "Willard's Ferry", and showed the people that they could raise produce and export it, and that by selling and buying in the markets they could surround themselves with all the comforts of life. He not only pointed out the way, but he worked out his designs, and by opening the largest and best farm in the county demonstrated that there were higher walks in life than baiting bears and gathering coon-skins. He led the way, and the people followed, and he lived, short as was his great life, long enough to see the merchandise that could once be carried in its importation on a pack-mule, rise t! o such proportions that his annual sales were more than $100,000. When would the people without Willard have discovered that the key to civilization and a powerful community of farmers, merchants, laborers, manufacturers, and the arts and sciences lay in the direction of the open doors of such markets as St. Louis, New Orleans, Cincinnati and New York? And he opened the way. We now look upon the great change, and how few know to whom they owe these blessings? In the little more than 20 years of his active life, he gave the people ideas and public improvements that will continue to be invaluable benefits for generations yet to come. He was the master spirit of Union County while he lived, and his influence will be here when we are all gone and forgotten. How incomparably greater is such a life than are all the Napoleons, Bismarcks or Alexanders that ever lived! His life was as different and as much greater than these men as it is better than the modern millionaires of the Gould kind, who gather in colossal fortunes by gambling -- pulling down and not building up a people. He had saved from a small salary $250, and with this he laid the foundation of the house of Willard & Co., and had so perfectly reared the superstructure that at his death his brother was enabled to carry out his designs. It would only bespeak on the part of the people of Union County a just appreciation of the benefits the life of Elijah Willard has been to them to place in some of its public buildings a full-sized portrait of him. No act could be more appropriate to his memory. No public expression of gratitude could be more just. WILLIS WILLARD.-- Jonathan Willard, a soldier in the War of 1812, came down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh and landed at Bird's Point in 1817. From here he went to Cape Girardeau, where he died the same year, and left his widow, Nancy, with four children -- Elijah, Willis, Anna and William. The widow with her children came to Jonesboro, and in great poverty commenced the serious struggle for life. Elijah was old enough to commence clerking in a store in Jonesboro, and in a few years he bought out his employer and associated with himself his brother Willis. In 1836 Elijah was made Internal Improvement Commissioner for the State of Illinois. He died in 1848 of consumption. The Williard family is of English origin and dates back in this country to the first colonists of Massachusetts, Simon Willard having landed in Boston in 1634. Willis Willard was born in Windsor County, Vt., March 20, 1805. He died May 12, 1881. He was but 11 years old when he came West, and had but little schooling, and but few opportunities for educating himself in this new country. His mother came to Jonesboro in 1820, and he was a clerk for different merchants until he was 21 years old. He took charge of his brother's business at his death, and rapidly rose to be the greatest merchant in Southern Illinois. He continued to merchandise for 43 years, and the fame of the house of Willard & Co. extended over the entire country. He sold goods and operated extensively in real estate. At one time he owned 13,000 acres of land in Union County. He retired from active business in 1873, the owner of 4,000 acres of the choicest lands in the county, and other property, making a total of over $500,000. For a long lifetime he was the foremost man not only in his county, but in Southern Illinois, in every enterprise tending to promote the material and intellectual interests of the people. He erected many of the best business and private houses in Jonesboro. In 1836 he built the first steam saw and grist mill that was ever in the county. In 1853, realizing the wants of Union County, he built at his own expense a female seminary in Jonesboro, and sent to Boston and brought two lady teachers to take charge of the institution. For years this was a flourishing school, and gave the people excellent facilities for educating their daughters, without being compelled to send them to the distant and expensive seminaries of the country. His enterprise and benevolence went hand in hand. He was not a politician, and although often tempted and persuaded, could never be induced to accept office; yet, in local politics, he often took a deep interest, and here, when he so desired, he wi! elded a master hand. He was a consistent Democrat all his life, but in political friend or foe he respected honor and worth, and despised all frauds and shams, and for pretentious demagogues he had neither respect nor patience. In 1835 he was married to Frances Webb, and of this marriage there were 11 children, five of whom died in infancy. Henry, the eldest, who had become a successful merchant in Jonesboro, died in 1865, aged 28 years. Willis Willard's princely fortune was the accumulations that come of those sterling business qualities and sound judgment that wronged no man, but tended to aid and build up all around him. His word was never questioned, his good advice and ripe judgment was freely extended to all, the humblest as well as the highest. To his many employes he was a most generous master, and a duty well performed was not overlooked, but remembered and rewarded. After a life of unremitting toil and tireless energy, the declining years allotted him were spent in that quiet retirement which he so well had earned. And when the summons that awaits us all finally came, he folded in peaceful content those once strong and bounteous hands upon a breast stilled of the desires, hopes, loves and hates of this world, and went peacefully to his fathers. May his memory linger for aye, as a benison to the good people of Union County. MRS. NANCY WILLARD, the mother of Willis Willard, died February 12, 1874, aged 99 years, ten months and five days, one of the noblest women that ever came West. Left poor, with four young children, her whole life was her children's, with a devotion that never ceased, and in the rising fortunes of her children and grandchildren was her whole life - thought and labor. For half a century she was widely known as "Mother Willard", and probably above all women that ever lived in Union County deserved that appellation of love. She was wise, earnest, active and charitable; she was the friend, the "mother" indeed of all who needed aid and comfort. She sought and cared for the poor orphans with ceaseless anxiety, and it is said in her just praise that no human being ever appealed to her for aid in vain. In every relation of life she was conspicuous and great; a loving mother, a dear friend, an earnest, good Christian, full of charity and forgiveness for all. For 17 years before ! death she was blind; her other faculties were unimpaired. Her end was peace and joy. She had wanted to fill out the even hundred years of life, but the summons came only a few days before the full century was reached, but she was ready and willing to go; she had prepared for it more than 50 years before it came. A long life, a valuable life, a life the world could but illy have spared. What a sweep of great events and changes that one life witnessed. She well remembered the surrender of Yorktown, and the rejoicing over the acknowledgment of our nation's independence by Great Britain in 1783. She was 16 years old when our national Constitution was adopted, and 31 years old when Napoleon ceded to the United States the French possessions in America. She was 42 years old when Napoleon was banished to St. Helena, and 53 when Lafayette visited America. She had seen Illinois grow from a wilderness of wild beasts and Indians to a great State of over three millions of people! . She had seen those who saw the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock from the Mayflower. Blessed "Mother Willard"! Hail, and farewell! ========= The name is spelled Williard sometimes in the book, but the index shows only the spelling Willard, under which are listed 35 first names. The only instance of the name Henry is the one above -- the oldest son of Willis. The WorldConnect Project shows a submission regarding the family of Jonathan Willard and Nancy Atkinson. http://worldconnect.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=mck783&id=I31036 The town of Anna was named for Anna Willard, wife of Winstead Davie. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Walter Wronka" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, January 07, 2005 8:37 PM Subject: [ILUNION] Henry Willard/Willyerd > Hello, > I would appreciate a lookup for Henry Willard in "The History of Alexander, > Pulaski, and Union Co's of ILLINOIS." > Published 1885. > Thank you, > Betty, > TX >