Samuel Willard

Samuel Willard was a New England Puritan clergyman who served as the acting president of Harvard from 1701 to 1707. He was born in Concord, Massachusetts, graduated from Harvard College in 1659, and was minister at Groton from 1663 to 1676, before being driven out by the Indians during King Philip's War. Willard was pastor of the Third Church, Boston, from 1678 until his death. He notably opposed the Salem witch trials and published many sermons: the folio volume, A Compleat Body of Divinity, was published posthumously in 1726.