The son of prominent Washington hotelier and Union Army commissary major Joseph Clapp Willard (1820–1897) and former Confederate spy Antonia Ford, Joseph Willard had two brothers who died in infancy.

In 1913, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Willard as the United States Ambassador to Spain.

Upon the outbreak of World War I Willard was vacationing in the United States and returned to Europe aboard the USS Tennessee, although his daughter, Belle, was sick with typhoid fever (she would recover).

[1] Ambassador Willard held his position under successive presidents of both political parties until shortly before his death.

His remains were returned to Washington, D.C.,[citation needed] for burial at Oak Hill cemetery.