Mary Anne Willard

ID: I27360

Name: Mary Ann(e) Wakefield

Sex: F

Birth: 11 JUN 1823 in Vandalia, Fayette, IL

Death: 7 DEC 1903 in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA

Burial: 10 DEC 1903

Ancestral File #: C553-V4

_UID: 7EAAEDDD344FD54CA10516A122BE7BD11F35

Note:

!DEATH: Death Notice(Los Angeles) At Good Samaritan Hospital, Dec 7,1903 , Mary A Willard ,Aged 82 years, a native of Wisconsin,pioneer in Califor nia. Funeral from chapel at Evergreen Cemetary, Thursday, Dec 10, at 11 a .m..Friends and relatives

invited.

!BURIAL: Evergreen Cemetery

Change Date: 6 FEB 2004 at 18:21:51

Father: John Allen Wakefield b: 22 JAN 1797 in Pendleton, Richland, SC

Mother: Elizabeth Thompson b: 11 JUN 1799 in , Bourbon, KY

Marriage 1 Alexander Hamilton Willard b: 2 FEB 1812 in , St Louis, MO

Married: 24 DEC 1837 in Grant, Iowa, WI

Children

John Allen Willard b: 30 MAR 1838 in Platteville, Grant Co., WI

George H. Willard b: 23 DEC 1840 in Platteville, Grant Co., WI
Elizabeth L. Willard b: 22 SEP 1842
Lydia Willard b: 2 JUN 1844 in Platteville, Grant County, Wisconsin
Clara Willard b: 9 MAR 1846
Henry T. Willard b: 10 MAY 1847
Issac Willard b: 1849
Eliza Jane Willard b: 4 JAN 1852 in Yolo, Calif
Franklin Pierce Willard b: 2 DEC 1853
James Willard b: 17 NOV 1856
Emily Willard b: 15 SEP 1858
Alexander Hamilton Willard b: 8 FEB 1860
Colista Mary E Willard b: 18 APR 1863
Maria Clay Willard b: 5 JAN 1866 in Yolo, CA

In June of 1859, 150 miles short of Fort Laramie Wyoming, and 10 weeks since they left Wisconsin, Nancy wrote The Letter.

It is addressed to her sister-in-law, the wife of Alexander H. Willard Jr. And this is placed at the bottom of the letter, as was usual practice then. A transcript is in the Descendants of Henry-2 Willard, the 2nd Supplement to the Williard Genealogy. The original letter is held by L. Spencer Leister, who generously allowed it to be displayed here this weekend.

History of California and its Southern Coast Counties; James Miller Guinn; (1907) Page 1527.

MRS. COLLISTO [COLISTA] WILLARD SCOTT, of the firm of C. W. Scott & Co., of Ocean Park, Cal., is a native daughter of the state being a daughter of Alexander Hamilton Willard, Jr., a pioneer of 1849, and Mary A. (Wakefield) Willard, his wife. Alexander Hamilton Willard, Jr., was one of the sons of Alexander Hamilton Willard, Sr., and his wife, Eleanor (McDonald) Willard, the elder man being one of the Lewis and Clark men of 1804. (See history of that expedition.) His name will be found on the roster and in the original records of that expedition on file at the Smithsonian Institute, and in other historical works. He was one of the nine picked men who left St. Louis with Lewis and Clark, selected for his fine physique and known courage and hardihood. After returning from the expedition he married Eleanor McDonald, of Kentucky, and born of this union were five daughters and seven sons. He was actively engaged in the Indian war of 1811 with Tecumseh and was selected by General Clark to carry his dispatches from St. Louis to Prairie du Chien, which he did with many hairbreadth escapes and much suffering. He, with four of his sons (George, Austin, Royland and Hamilton, Jr.), fought in the Black Hawk war. In 1852 he again crossed the plains, this time to California, with other members of his own family, where he joined his son, Hamilton, Jr., and other members of the same family who had emigrated to the Sacramento valley in 1849 and had acquired part of a large Spanish grant on Cache creek, near Sacramento. He was born in New Hampshire in 1778 and died in 1868, and is buried in Georgetown, near Sacramento, Cal. He had one brother by the name of Joel Willard, who remained in New Hampshire; and two sisters who married men by the name of Willard. He was a descendant of the two Harvard presidents, Samuel and Joseph Willard, who were descended from Simon Willard, one of the founders of Concord, Mass., in 1634, and whose ancestry has been traced for eight hundred years on English soil. The late Frances Willard, the noted temperance reformer, is a descendants of the same family. Alexander Hamilton Willard, Jr., was born in Missouri in 1812, and died in California in 1870. He married Mary A. Wakefield, a daughter of Judge John A. Wakefield, and to them fourteen children were born, most of whom grew to maturity in California. Judge John A. Wakefield was born in South Carolina in 1795, his mother being a member of the celebrated Barnwell family. When seven years of age his parents removed to Kentucky, and he there attained manhood, and during the war of 1812 served as a member of the battalion of mounted rangers, and also served through the Black Hawk war, attaining the rank of major. In later life he wrote a history of the Black Hawk war which has always been standard. He came of Revolutionary stock, his father and several uncles being members of Mariona's "Immortal Band." He was also a pioneer in the states of Illinois, Minnesota and Kansas, having served several terms in Illinois legislature, being a fellow member of Stephen A. Douglas, between whom a warm friendship existed. Judge Wakefield entered the Legal profession when a young man and acquired a noteworthy success in this line, being a scholar as well as a good financier, having accumulated a large fortune in lands and stock. He also wrote several books and from Judge Wakefield's library in Galena, Ill., Abraham Lincoln received his first instruction toward an education, and in the home of the judge found a trusted and valued friend. Judge Wakefield married Eliza Thompson, with whom he lived a long life and reared a large family. He was distinguished for his energy of character and high sense of personal honor, and was one of the men who helped to make the history of this county.