Josiah Willard

They moved to a 360-acre farm on a river in Janesville, in the Wisconsin Territory some few miles north of the Illinois border.

[4] During the family’s stay in Wisconsin, they would convert from Congregationalism to Methodism,[5] a Protestant denomination that placed an emphasis on social justice and service to the world.

Willard was elected to the second session of the Wisconsin State Legislature, which convened January 10, 1849 and adjourned April 2 of that year, as one of five members from Rock County; he was the only one from Janesville.

In 1858, the Willard family moved to Evanston, Illinois so that Mary and Frances could attend college and their brother Oliver could go to the Garrett Biblical Institute.

The girls had attended Milwaukee Female College, where their mother's sister was a teacher[12] Frances would become a world-famous suffragist and first Dean of Women at Northwestern University.