His parents were of the sturdy stock which has made New England what she is. He was a little while in Yale College, and graduated at the Cambridge Divinity School, 1843, ordained in Grafton, Mass., January 3, 1844. On the 8th of May following, he was married to Miss Martha Anne Buttrick of Framingham. Matha's father was Deacon Stephen Buttrick. Hr eldest sister was married to Rev. George Rapall Noyes, D.D., Professor of Divinity at Cambridge Divinity School.
From the date of his ordination at Grafton, every faculty of his being was consecrated to life-long ministrations of love and peace. He was installed in West Roxbury July 18, 1852. The years from 1844 to 1852 brought stirring times. The education of the people was a cause ever near his heart, and the great struggle in the development of a general system of free schools for Massachusetts was not yet won. The famous seventh annual report of the Board of Education, the epoch-making utterance of that contest, appeared in 1844. Mr. Willson's frequent and extended correspondence with Horace Mann shows how intimate and confidential were his relations with that gallant champion. Mr. Willson never wavered in his course; neither at Grafton, where his position on the school committee cost him many friends, at West Roxbury where he became the superintendent of schools, nor afterwards at Salem, where he was conspicuous in resisting the enforced observance of Protestant rites in non-sectarian schools as impolitic and unfair. In 1853 he received from Harvard the honorary degree of Master of Arts. In 1854 he famously preached against the Fugitive Slave Act and slavery.
Mr. Willson, in 1859, removed to Salem. He had accepted the very spontaneous call of a parish not without traditions and a history, the North Church. If there were doubt about his standing with his parish, it was soon dispelled. Mr. Willson had been in Salem less than a year when John Brown's attempt upon: Harper's Ferry had been made and had failed, and their leader of it, with a number of his men, had been put to death. Our people were appealed to for funds to meet: the burial charges and costs of trial, and the pressing need of kindred in distress. A public meeting was called, January 6, 1860, in aid of these funds, at which Ralph Waldo Emerson, John A. Andrew, James Freeman Clarke, John G. Whittier and Wendell Phillips were heard. Clergymen were not numerous at that time, who cared to test the hold they had on the affections of their people by taking pail in a gathering like that. The one Salem clergyman who took part in it was Mr. Willson.
During the Civil War Rev. Willson served as Chaplain for Co. F & S, 24th Regiment, Massachusetts Infantry.
[one source: "A MEMOIR OF EDMUND B. WILLSON" by Robert S. Rantoul(mayor of Salem), Essex Institute, 1895.]
Children:
1. Sophia Edgell, born about 1845, wed Francis Henry Lee
2. Martha Buttrick born about 1848, died Feb. 8, 1853
3. Lucy Burr born about 1850 in Grafton
4. Alice Brooks, born about 1852, a teacher
5. Robert W., born 20 Jul 1853, wed Annie D. West on 14 Dec 1881.
6. Edmund Russell, born in 1856
He was elected a corporator of the Salem Savings Bank; was member of the New England Historic-Genealogical Society since 1859, and finally became its Vice-President for Massachusetts; President of the Salem Athenaeum since 1886; President in 1893 of the Essex Institute that he identified with since 1859; in 1883 and 1884, he represented Salem in the General Court.
From the date of his ordination at Grafton, every faculty of his being was consecrated to life-long ministrations of love and peace. He was installed in West Roxbury July 18, 1852. The years from 1844 to 1852 brought stirring times. The education of the people was a cause ever near his heart, and the great struggle in the development of a general system of free schools for Massachusetts was not yet won. The famous seventh annual report of the Board of Education, the epoch-making utterance of that contest, appeared in 1844. Mr. Willson's frequent and extended correspondence with Horace Mann shows how intimate and confidential were his relations with that gallant champion. Mr. Willson never wavered in his course; neither at Grafton, where his position on the school committee cost him many friends, at West Roxbury where he became the superintendent of schools, nor afterwards at Salem, where he was conspicuous in resisting the enforced observance of Protestant rites in non-sectarian schools as impolitic and unfair. In 1853 he received from Harvard the honorary degree of Master of Arts. In 1854 he famously preached against the Fugitive Slave Act and slavery.
Mr. Willson, in 1859, removed to Salem. He had accepted the very spontaneous call of a parish not without traditions and a history, the North Church. If there were doubt about his standing with his parish, it was soon dispelled. Mr. Willson had been in Salem less than a year when John Brown's attempt upon: Harper's Ferry had been made and had failed, and their leader of it, with a number of his men, had been put to death. Our people were appealed to for funds to meet: the burial charges and costs of trial, and the pressing need of kindred in distress. A public meeting was called, January 6, 1860, in aid of these funds, at which Ralph Waldo Emerson, John A. Andrew, James Freeman Clarke, John G. Whittier and Wendell Phillips were heard. Clergymen were not numerous at that time, who cared to test the hold they had on the affections of their people by taking pail in a gathering like that. The one Salem clergyman who took part in it was Mr. Willson.
During the Civil War Rev. Willson served as Chaplain for Co. F & S, 24th Regiment, Massachusetts Infantry.
[one source: "A MEMOIR OF EDMUND B. WILLSON" by Robert S. Rantoul(mayor of Salem), Essex Institute, 1895.]
Children:
1. Sophia Edgell, born about 1845, wed Francis Henry Lee
2. Martha Buttrick born about 1848, died Feb. 8, 1853
3. Lucy Burr born about 1850 in Grafton
4. Alice Brooks, born about 1852, a teacher
5. Robert W., born 20 Jul 1853, wed Annie D. West on 14 Dec 1881.
6. Edmund Russell, born in 1856
He was elected a corporator of the Salem Savings Bank; was member of the New England Historic-Genealogical Society since 1859, and finally became its Vice-President for Massachusetts; President of the Salem Athenaeum since 1886; President in 1893 of the Essex Institute that he identified with since 1859; in 1883 and 1884, he represented Salem in the General Court.
His parents were of the sturdy stock which has made New England what she is. He was a little while in Yale College, and graduated at the Cambridge Divinity School, 1843, ordained in Grafton, Mass., January 3, 1844. On the 8th of May following, he was married to Miss Martha Anne Buttrick of Framingham. Matha's father was Deacon Stephen Buttrick. Hr eldest sister was married to Rev. George Rapall Noyes, D.D., Professor of Divinity at Cambridge Divinity School.
From the date of his ordination at Grafton, every faculty of his being was consecrated to life-long ministrations of love and peace. He was installed in West Roxbury July 18, 1852. The years from 1844 to 1852 brought stirring times. The education of the people was a cause ever near his heart, and the great struggle in the development of a general system of free schools for Massachusetts was not yet won. The famous seventh annual report of the Board of Education, the epoch-making utterance of that contest, appeared in 1844. Mr. Willson's frequent and extended correspondence with Horace Mann shows how intimate and confidential were his relations with that gallant champion. Mr. Willson never wavered in his course; neither at Grafton, where his position on the school committee cost him many friends, at West Roxbury where he became the superintendent of schools, nor afterwards at Salem, where he was conspicuous in resisting the enforced observance of Protestant rites in non-sectarian schools as impolitic and unfair. In 1853 he received from Harvard the honorary degree of Master of Arts. In 1854 he famously preached against the Fugitive Slave Act and slavery.
Mr. Willson, in 1859, removed to Salem. He had accepted the very spontaneous call of a parish not without traditions and a history, the North Church. If there were doubt about his standing with his parish, it was soon dispelled. Mr. Willson had been in Salem less than a year when John Brown's attempt upon: Harper's Ferry had been made and had failed, and their leader of it, with a number of his men, had been put to death. Our people were appealed to for funds to meet: the burial charges and costs of trial, and the pressing need of kindred in distress. A public meeting was called, January 6, 1860, in aid of these funds, at which Ralph Waldo Emerson, John A. Andrew, James Freeman Clarke, John G. Whittier and Wendell Phillips were heard. Clergymen were not numerous at that time, who cared to test the hold they had on the affections of their people by taking pail in a gathering like that. The one Salem clergyman who took part in it was Mr. Willson.
During the Civil War Rev. Willson served as Chaplain for Co. F & S, 24th Regiment, Massachusetts Infantry.
[one source: "A MEMOIR OF EDMUND B. WILLSON" by Robert S. Rantoul(mayor of Salem), Essex Institute, 1895.]
Children:
1. Sophia Edgell, born about 1845, wed Francis Henry Lee
2. Martha Buttrick born about 1848, died Feb. 8, 1853
3. Lucy Burr born about 1850 in Grafton
4. Alice Brooks, born about 1852, a teacher
5. Robert W., born 20 Jul 1853, wed Annie D. West on 14 Dec 1881.
6. Edmund Russell, born in 1856
He was elected a corporator of the Salem Savings Bank; was member of the New England Historic-Genealogical Society since 1859, and finally became its Vice-President for Massachusetts; President of the Salem Athenaeum since 1886; President in 1893 of the Essex Institute that he identified with since 1859; in 1883 and 1884, he represented Salem in the General Court.
From the date of his ordination at Grafton, every faculty of his being was consecrated to life-long ministrations of love and peace. He was installed in West Roxbury July 18, 1852. The years from 1844 to 1852 brought stirring times. The education of the people was a cause ever near his heart, and the great struggle in the development of a general system of free schools for Massachusetts was not yet won. The famous seventh annual report of the Board of Education, the epoch-making utterance of that contest, appeared in 1844. Mr. Willson's frequent and extended correspondence with Horace Mann shows how intimate and confidential were his relations with that gallant champion. Mr. Willson never wavered in his course; neither at Grafton, where his position on the school committee cost him many friends, at West Roxbury where he became the superintendent of schools, nor afterwards at Salem, where he was conspicuous in resisting the enforced observance of Protestant rites in non-sectarian schools as impolitic and unfair. In 1853 he received from Harvard the honorary degree of Master of Arts. In 1854 he famously preached against the Fugitive Slave Act and slavery.
Mr. Willson, in 1859, removed to Salem. He had accepted the very spontaneous call of a parish not without traditions and a history, the North Church. If there were doubt about his standing with his parish, it was soon dispelled. Mr. Willson had been in Salem less than a year when John Brown's attempt upon: Harper's Ferry had been made and had failed, and their leader of it, with a number of his men, had been put to death. Our people were appealed to for funds to meet: the burial charges and costs of trial, and the pressing need of kindred in distress. A public meeting was called, January 6, 1860, in aid of these funds, at which Ralph Waldo Emerson, John A. Andrew, James Freeman Clarke, John G. Whittier and Wendell Phillips were heard. Clergymen were not numerous at that time, who cared to test the hold they had on the affections of their people by taking pail in a gathering like that. The one Salem clergyman who took part in it was Mr. Willson.
During the Civil War Rev. Willson served as Chaplain for Co. F & S, 24th Regiment, Massachusetts Infantry.
[one source: "A MEMOIR OF EDMUND B. WILLSON" by Robert S. Rantoul(mayor of Salem), Essex Institute, 1895.]
Children:
1. Sophia Edgell, born about 1845, wed Francis Henry Lee
2. Martha Buttrick born about 1848, died Feb. 8, 1853
3. Lucy Burr born about 1850 in Grafton
4. Alice Brooks, born about 1852, a teacher
5. Robert W., born 20 Jul 1853, wed Annie D. West on 14 Dec 1881.
6. Edmund Russell, born in 1856
He was elected a corporator of the Salem Savings Bank; was member of the New England Historic-Genealogical Society since 1859, and finally became its Vice-President for Massachusetts; President of the Salem Athenaeum since 1886; President in 1893 of the Essex Institute that he identified with since 1859; in 1883 and 1884, he represented Salem in the General Court.
Family Members
Advertisement
Records on Ancestry
Advertisement
