- JOSEPH F. WILLARD was born in Vermont in 1805. His parents
moved to the State of New
- York when he was ten years old, and settled in Monroe County,
near Rochester. In that vicinity, he grew to manhood, devoting
himself chiefly, after sixteen years of age, first to teaching
and then to mercantile pursuits. In the autumn of 1841, several
years after his marriage, he removed with his family to Oberlin,
Ohio, where, for five years, he devoted himself assiduously to
study, with the manly purpose of supplying, as far as possible,
the definciencies of early education. Ill health obliged him
to relinquish his plan of completing his college course, after
he had entered the junior year, and he removed to Wisconsin,
where he lived fourteen years, carrying on a large farm near
Janesville, besides holding several important civil offices at
various times, and being prominently connected with the horticultural
and agricultural interests of the State.
- Mr. WILLARD came to Wisconsin in 1846, and located some two
miles below Janesville, on the
- east side of Rock River, where he purchased three hundred
and forty acres of wild land, upon which he made practical demonstrations
of his theories of agriculture. As early as 1850, though the
country was then quite new, he succeeded by unwearied and continued
efforts, in organizing the Rock County "Agricultural Society
and Mechanics' Institute," of which he was elected President;
and by liberal contributions of both time and money he succeeded
beyong the expectations of its most sanguine friends, in placing
the Society on a permanent basis. Before this Society, in 1853,
he, as its President, delivered an able address, which was published
in the "Volume of Transactions of the Wisconsin Agricultural
Society" for that year.
- His success and the ability and zeal he manifested in the
interests of agriculture soon pointed him
- out as a fit person to take a prominent position in the management
of the affairs of the State Agricultural Society, and, in the
year 1857, he was elected its President, which position he filled
with much credit to himself, and to the entire satisfaction of
the Society and the people of the State. His efforts for the
promotion of the welfare and usefulness of the Society were most
earnest and devoted, and must be ever gratefully remembered by
all true friends of agriculture throughout the State.
- In 1859, he changed his residence to Evanston, Ill., on account
of the superior advantages it
- offered for the education of his children, and of its proximity
to Chicago, where he contemplated entering into business. "I
shall never live elsewhere," he said, soon after locating
there, "no place ever suited me so well as this."
- In the autumn of 1865, he withdrew from the banking house
of Preston, Willard & Kean (with
- which he had been for several years connected), his health,
which had always been delicate, no longer permitting him to engage
in business. But his interest in the village, and especially
in the Methodist Church, was more manifest than before, now that
he was released from absorbing occupations of a personal character.
- The following is from a published account given by his bereaved
daughter. In speaking of his last
- protracted illness, she says:
-
- But for one year he has been missed from
his accustomed place in the church and in the social meetings,
which
- no one filled more regularly than he, when
it was possible. For one year his feeble frame has endured untold
pain, by chill and fever, night-sweats, cough, and all the dreadful
symptoms of that most terrible disease, consumption. It crept
up slowly, allowing him a daily respite at first, attacking him
with great violence in the early months of summer, pursuing him
when he left his home on the lake shore, as the chilly winds
of autumn began to blow, and went to his friends at the East,
in the old familiar places, hoping much from change of air and
scene, confining him constantly to his bed for four months, wasting
him to a mere skeleton, and, finally, in untold suffering, wresting
away his last faint breath - the earthly side. Not so stands
the record, thank God! upon the heavenly side. Almost from the
first, he thought this would be his last illness, and quietly,
diligently and wisely proceeded to arrange his earthly affairs.
No item, however minute, seemed to escape him. Whatever was of
the least importance to his family, whatever friendship or acquaintance,
or any of his relations in life demanded or even suggested, ever
so faintly, was done by him.
- He did not need newly to attune his mind
to harmony with the will of God, no matter where it might land
him,
- through what depths soever of pain and agnegation.
But in those months of suffering, he enjoyed a consciousness
of the presence of his Savior; consolations from the Holy Spirit;
views of the glory soon to be revealed, such as no pen may describe,
no gratitude of ours may equal.
- Much that he said has been preserved, and
dimly shadows the delightful visions by which his sick-room was
- made sacred.
-
- The death of Mr. WILLARD occurred in the autumn of 1867,
and, though for some time
- anticipated by those who knew his condition, nevertheless,
to a large number of his personal friends in the State, it came
as a sudden shock.
- As a citizen and neighbor, Mr. WILLARD was a noble specimen
of a Christian gentleman. He
- was honored for his unwavering adhesion to principle and
duty, and for his zeal and liberality in the promotion of all
worthly objects, while the graces of his personal character,
and his amiable disposition, won for him the love of his fellow-citizens.
- Socially at home in his "Forest Cottage," his virtues
and personal gifts shone with a beautiful and
- benign lustre.
- The social attentions it was his pleasure always to extend
to those who visited him there were but
- the generous expressions of his characteristic hospitality.
His conversation was ever of an exalted character, pure and enriched,
with useful and varied information derived alike from books,
from men, and from experience and observation, marked also by
originality of thought, yet, with an absence of self-assertion
or thoughtless or unkind words, that might afflict or wound.
- Though his career was characterized by no remarkable achievement,
his life was, nevertheless,
- remarkable for its purity and for its consecration to the
best interests of his family and of his fellow men.
-
- Taken from "The History of Rock County, Wis."
(c)1879; pp. 441-442.
-
- Courtesy of Carol
|