(1849) ; " Life Here and There " (1850) ; " People I have Met " (1850) ; " Hurrygraphs " (1851) ; " Pun Jottings " (1858) ; " A Summer Cruise in the Medi- terranean " (1853) ; " A Health Trip to the Trop- ics " (1854) ; " Out Doors at Idlewild " (1854) ; " Famous Persons and Places " (1854) ; " The Rag- Bag " (1855) ; " Paul Fane," a novel (1857) : " Po- ems " (1858) ; and " The Convalescent " (1859). He also edited and compiled " Scenery of the United States and Canada " (London, 1840) ; " Scenery and Antiquities of Ireland" (1842); "A Life of Jennv Lind*' (Philadelphia, 1851); and "Trenton Falls"" {New York, 1851). His life has been written by Henry A. Beers in the " American Men of Letters " series (Boston, 1885), who has also issued " Selec- tions " from his prose writings (New York, 1885). — His only son, Bailey, was graduated at the Co- lumbia college school of mines in 1878, and is now an assistant on the U. S. geological survey. — His brother, Richard Storrs, journalist, b. in Boston, Mass., 10 Feb., 1819, was graduated at Yale in 1841, and adopted literature as a profes- sion. He has edited the "New York Musical "World " and " Once a Week," contributed to cur- rent literature, and published " Church Chorals and Choir Studies " (New York, 1854) ; " Our Church Music ; a Book for Pastors and People " (1855) ; and "Carols and Music Poems" (15 nos., 1860-1). He contributed to "National Hymns" (1861) and to the American edition of the "Life of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy " (1865).
WILLIS, William, lawyer, b. in Haverhill,
Mass., 31 Aug., 1794; d. in Portland, Me., 17 Feb.,
1870. He was graduated at Harvard in 1813, and
After studying law was admitted to the Suffolk
bar in January, 1817, Opening an office in Boston,
he practised there till April, 1819, when his former
preceptor, Prentiss Mellen, having been elected
to the U. S. senate, invited Mr. Willis to take
charge of his practice. In 1820, on the organiza-
tion of the state of Maine, Mr. Mellen became its
first chief justice, and then Mr. Willis continued
his profession alone until 1835, when he became
Associated with William P. Fessenden. For twenty
years this partnership continued. His tastes never
led him toward court-practice, but rather toward
•conveyancing and other departments of real-estate
business, in which he was considered unusually
well informed and accurate. In 1855 he was elected
to the Maine senate, and in 1859 he became mayor
of Portland. He was chosen a Republican presi-
dential elector in 1860, and the degree of LL. D.
was conferred on him by Bowdoin in 1867. He
was a member of nearly all the state historical
societies, including that of Massachusetts, of which
in 1867 he was elected vice-president, and in
1855-9 he was one of the vice-presidents of the
New England historic-genealogical society. He
became in 1828 a member of the Maine historical
society, of which he was successively recording sec-
retary, treasurer, and then president in 1856-'65.
He was also chief editor of all the publications of
the society, nis publications include " The History
of Portland, from its First Settlement, with Notices
of the Neighboring Towns, and of the Changes of
the Government in Maine, Portland" (2 parts, Port-
land, 1831-'3: enlarged ed. entitled "The History
of Portland from 1632 to 1864," 1865); "Report
of the Committee on the Riot in Portland " (1855) ;
" Introductory Address before the Maine Historical
Society " (1855) ; " Inaugural Address before the
Maine Historical Society " (1857) : " Genealogy of
the McKinstry Family, with a Preliminary Essay on
the Scotch-Irish Immigrations to America" (Bos-
ton, 1858) ; " Descriptive Catalogue of Books and
Pamphlets relating to Maine " (New York, 1859) ;
and " A History of the Law, the Courts, and the
Lawyers of Maine from its First Colonization to
the Early Part of the Present Century " (Portland,
1863). See "A Tribute to the Memory of Hon.
William Willis," by Charles Henry Hart (Phila-
delphia, 1870).
WILLISTON, Ebenezer Bancroft, educator,
b. in Tunbridge, Vt., in 1801 ; d. in Norwich, Vt.,
27 Dec, 1837. He was a second cousin of George
Bancroft. He spent three years at Dartmouth,
and was graduated at the University of Vermont
in 1823. He had already begun to teach in Capt.
Alden Partridge's military academy in Norwich,
Vt., where he was subsequently a professor. Fee-
ble health forced him to spend most of the last
nine years of his life at the south, where he was for
some time president of Jefferson college, Miss. He
published an edition of Tacitus (Hartford, Conn..
1826) and " The Eloquence of the United States "
(5 vols.. Middletown, Conn., 1827). — His son, Ed-
ward Bancroft, a major in the 3d U. S. artillery,
received four brevets for gallantrv in the civil war.
WILLISTON, Samuel, philanthropist, b. in
Easthampton, Mass., 17 June, 1795;' d. there, 18
July, 1874. His father, Rev. Payson Williston
(1763-1856), was graduated at Yale in 1783, was
minister of Easthampton from 1789 till 1833, and
published several sermons. The son began to
study at Phillips Andover academy with a
view to the ministry, but abandoned his purpose,
owing to weakness of the eyes, and engaged in the
manufacture of buttons, in which he gained a large
fortune. This occupation was begun at his own
home by his wife, and extended until many hun-
dred women in the neighboring towns were em-
ployed in it under his superintendence. In 1831
Joel Hayden began to make buttons in Williams-
burg, Mass., with machinery of his own invention,
and, Mr. Williston entering into partnership with
him, they continued the business there till 1848,
when Williston bought Hayden's rights and re-
moved the factory to Easthampton. Afterward he
engaged also in the manufacture of suspenders.
In 1840 he established at his native place Williston
seminary, a preparatory school of high grade, to
which he gave at various times about $270,000 and
bequeathed $500,000 more. He also gave to Am-
herst $150,000, endowing professorships there in
1858-'9, gave liberally to Mount Holyoke female
seminary, and three times erected a church at
Easthampton, which was twice burned. His bene-
factions amounted to more than $1,500,000. He
also did much to improve the appearance of his
native town. In 1841-3 Mr. Williston was a mem-
ber of the Massachusetts legislature. His widow
gave to the seminary that bears his name the
Williston homestead to be used as the principal's
house after her death, which occurred in 1885.
WILLISTON, Seth, clergyman, b. in Suffield, Conn., 4 April, 1770; d. in Guilford Centre, Chenango co., N. Y., 2 March, 1851. His father was a
farmer and saddler, and the son assisted him in both occupations. He was graduated at Dartmouth in 1791, taught at Windsor and New London, Conn., and, after studying theology with Rev. Dr. Charles Backus at Somers, was licensed to preach in 1794. After occupying several pulpits in Connecticut temporarilv, he went to Chenango county, N. Y., and labored as an evangelist, being ordained in 1797. He organized several churches, including that of Lisle, N. Y., where he became minister in 1799. On 4 July, 1810, Mr. Williston was installed over a Presbyterian church in Durham, N. Y., where he remained till his dismissal,
