Samuel Willard, minister, educator, and musician, was born on April 18, 1775 in Petersham, Massachusetts, the seventh child of eleven children, to Deacon William Willard and Katherine Wilder Willard, and received his AB from Harvard College in 1803. This collection consists of letters that Willard wrote to his parents and various siblings throughout different stages of his life. The correspondence begins while Willard is teaching and studying in Lancaster, Massachusetts, continues while he is a student at Harvard College, carries on after his graduation as he travels and teaches in different locations throughout Maine and Massachusetts, and concludes during Willard’s tenure as the minister of Deerfield, Massachusetts.