Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10.djvu/435

 WILLARD

WILLARD

Hartford, Conn., and of Thomas Hooker (q.v.). She attended the district school in Worthington Center, and the academies at Berlin and Hart- ford ; taught in the district schools of Berlin and Kensington, Conn., 1804-07, besides conducting a private school at her own home with her sister, Almira Hart, afterwards Mrs. Phelps (q.v.), and subsequently taught in the academies in West- field, Mass., and Middlebmy, Vt. She was mar- ried in 1809, to Dr. John Willard, U.S. marshal of Vermont, who lost his fortune after the war of 1812. In 1814 Mrs. Willard opened a boarding school in Middlebury, Dr. Willard being associa- ted with her in its management. Upon the de- velopment of the school's course of study into the equivalent of a college curriculum, it was decided to establish a new school in a new location, and in 1819 a charter was obtained through the influence of Governor Clinton, incorporating the Wuterford (N.Y.) Academy for Young Ladies. In 1821 the academy, upon the offer of spacious buildings and grounds, was moved to Troy, N.Y., and became the Troy Female seminary. After Dr. Willard's death, in 1825, Mrs. Willard con- tinued the management of the seminary in- dependently. She visited Europe in 1830, and in 1831 was instrumental in establishing a school for girls in Athens, Greece, to which she devoted the proceeds of her Journal and Letters from France and Great Britain (1833). She resigned from the active management of the seminary in 1838, at which date two hundred trained teachers had been sent out from the school. She was married in the same year to Dr. Christopher C. Yates, from whom slie obtained a legal separation in 1843, re- taining the name of Willard. She resided in Hartford and in Kensington, Conn., where she served as superintendent of schools, 1840-41, until 1844, when she made her. home on the seminary grounds in Troy, N.Y. She visited the western and southern states in 1846, speaking at numerous teacliers' conventions, and was a delegate to the World's educational convention in 1854. Slie is the author of : The Woodbridge and Willard Geographies and Atlases (1823); History of the United States (1828) ; Universal History in Per- spective (1837); Treatise on the Circidation of the Blood (1846); Resjnration and its Effects (1849); Last Leaves of A^nerican History (1849); Astron- omy (1853); Morals for the Young (1857), and several charts, atlases, addresses and pamphlets. Slie also wrote the poem : Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep (1830). See: Everest's "Poets of Connecticut" (1843); "Life of Emma Willard" by John Lord (1873); "Life and Work in Mid- dlebury, Vt., of Emma Willard " by Ezra Brain- erd (1893), and " Emma Willard and Her Pupils," edited by Mrs. A. W. Fairbanks (1898). A bronze statue of Mrs. Willard was placed in the

^Ye^,>c.i^^4A£e€tAJU=>

seminar}' grounds in 1890, and the Emma Willard association formed in 1891. Her name in Class C, educators, received four votes for a place in the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, October, 1900. She died in Troy, N.Y.. April 15, 1870.

WILLARD, Frances Elizabeth, reformer, was born in Churchville, N.Y., Sept. 28,1839; daugh- ter of Josiah Flint and Mary Thompson (Hill) Willard ; granddaughter of John and Polly (Thompson) Hill, and a descendant of Maj.-Gen. Simon Willard, who came from Hors- ' " ^

manden, England, in 1634, and founded Concord, Mass., 1635; serving as judge of the supreme, superior and admiralty courts. She was carried by h^ parents to Ober- lin, Ohio, in 1840, and in 1846 to Wis- consin, where her mother engaged in teaching school and her father in farm- ing. She attended

the Milwaukee Female college, 1857 ; was grad- uated from Northwestern Female college, Evan- ston. 111., 1859 ; was professor of natural science in the college, 1862-66 ; and preceptress of Genesee Wesle3'an seminary, Lima, N.Y., 1866- 67. She studied and traveled in Europe and the Holy Land, 1868-70 ; was president of the Woman's college of Northwestern university, 1871-74, introducing the system of self-govern- ment, which became generally adopted in the other colleges, and was professor of a?sthetics in the university, 1873-74, resigning in the latter year to identify herself with the cause of tem- perance. She was corresponding-secretary of the National W.C.T.U., 1874-78, and president of the union, 1879-98. In 1882 she became a member of the central committee of the national Prohibition party, and in 1883 toured the United States, organizing and strengthening the women's tem- perance work. She also founded in 1883 and was president (1883-98) of the World's W.C.T.U. ; presented, under the auspices of the National W.C.T.U., memorials to each of the four political conventions for the nomination of president of the United States, 1884; was a founder of the Home Protection party, 1884, and a member of its executive committee, and accepted the leader- ship of the White Cross movement in her own unions, 1886, which remained her special depart- ment until her death. She was president of the Woman's Council of the United States from its organization, 1887 ; a delegate to the general con-