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John Milton Willis
YOUTH AND EDUCATION
John Milton Willis was born near Rapidan, Virginia on August 12 1849 at Sping Hill, near Locust Grove Plantation. He was born to James Willis and Elizabeth Gordon Willis (Daughter of Rev. John Churchill Gordon) and grew up alongside the Rapidan river and attended a school on the family estate under Andrew J. Gordon. Once he became of age, John Milton went to Richmond College (now University of Richmond, then located on Grace St. in Richmond). Upon graduation, he practiced law for one year in Charlottesville, VA.
John Milton Willis in the 1870-1871 Richmond College Catalogue; click for full document.
LEGAL CAREER AND MOVE TO MISSOURI
Add for John Milton Willis’ Law Office in Marshall MO, Nov. 22 1872, Saline County Progress.
Edward Prescott Garnett was the son of John Newton Garnett and Margaret Jane Gordon, and he and John Milton Willis were one year of age apart (E P Garnett born 1850, JMW 1849); both were born in Culpeper Co. VA.
Garnett’s family had moved to MO after his father graduated med school in Charlottesville in 1852, but EP Garnett had come back to VA to go to the University of Richmond, at the same time as his cousin, John Milton. After E P’s Graduation and John Milton’s year in Charlottesville in 1872, E P brought John Milton back with him to Miami near Marshall MO and together, they realized their plans to establish a legal practice.
In 1875 E P Married the daughter of Virginia Sara and Judge Edward Graves Garnett (his cousin of the same last name), who’s family had moved to Saline in 1840 to grow tobacco and settled near Slater MO where Russell Holman and Louie Holman (ne Martha Lucinda Tarrant) retired. E P’s wife’s family was in attendance at the Rehoboth Baptist Church where Russell Holman was pastor, and her parents were buried there in January of 1875, having both succumbed to pneumonia within three days of one another.
Miami, MO 1887
MARRIAGE
It is beyond a doubt that John Milton went to church with E P Garnett and his family, as he fell in love with the pastor’s eldest daughter. On May 3, 1877 John Milton Willis was joined in matrimony to Mary Young Holman. The marriage was preformed by Dr. Henry Talbird, who also had overseen the marriage of Russell Holman and Martha Lucinda Tarrant. It appears that the religious zeal and passion for God displayed by Russell Holman had a great effect on John Milton Willis. John Milton began to take an interest in the ministry and by several accounts, took to learning from Holman (possibly before his marriage). Holman’s paralysis began in 1876, so it seems likely to from such accounts that John Milton and Mary spent a good deal of time at the home of Russell Holman before his death in December, 1879. Family oral tradition holds that at this time “the lord began to drive him into ministry from which, he said, Jonah like, he had been running from all his life.”
MOVE TO FLORIDA
After Rev. Holman’s death John Milton Willis, in 1884, decided to uproot his family and move to Florida on account of “inflammatory rheumatism” ; in the 19th century it was believed that lower altitudes and warmer climates would help better ailing health. The springs at Green Cove Springs were said to have healing and positive effects on his ailment, and there were healing spring resorts throughout the community during the Victorian era. John Milton continued his practice there and grew oranges from 1884 to 1895.
Article in the Florida Dispatch: John Milton Willis Advocating for Orange Coops in 1885
The winter of 1894-1895 was one of the harshest on record in Florida, and is still referred to as the “Great Freeze.” Entire farms lost everything, Florida’s economy was devastated and there were several communities that were economically wiped out. It was in the aftermath of those years, in late 1895 that John Milton fully surrendered his heart to God. He was ordained in Green Cove Springs, Florida January, 1896. Though he had no formal religious education, apparently he learned a sufficient amount from Russell Holman and Dr. Henry Talbird [Talbird was also an educator and baptist, was president of Howard College in AL and the Colonel under whom Russell Holman was Chaplain in the 41st AL; Talbird too became a minister after the Civil War]. He stayed and began ministry in Florida at Palatka Church (just south of Green Cove Springs, wherein there is a baptist church named Russell Baptist) for a short time, and then, likely due to family hardship John Milton and Mary Holman Willis moved back to John’s home state of Virginia. During their time in Florida and just after, they had four children that did not survive unto adulthood: Louie E. Willis- 1879-1892, John M. Willis Jr.- 1882-1890, Henry Talbird Willis 1886-1892, and Mary Holman Willis 1894-1904.
St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church where John M. Jr and Henry Talbird are buried.
1900 Census Record with John Milton and his Family
MINISTRY IN VIRGINIA
John Milton was first sent by the Baptist Mission Board to Lynchburg where he was a pastor across the James river in Amherst at Mount Madison Church, until he received a commission from the State Mission Board to preach in the mountains of Virginia, then described as the “waste places.” Though it is recorded that John Milton Willis took a leave due to health, this leave was in 1905, just after his daughter Mary Holman Willis’ death in Buena Vista. After about eighteen months of rest, in Nov. 1907 he resumed his ministry, in Bridgewater VA in the Shenandoah valley and began to preach again at two churches to the north- Mt. Crawford and Bridgewater Baptist.
JOHN MILTON’S LAST DAY
There are two accounts of John Milton’s final hours. The book Virginia Baptist Ministers states that John Milton preached a sermon on Galatians 5:1 at the church in Bridgewater, left the service and dropped dead in the street right after. This account is also given by the newspapers in Staunton, VA and his former home of Marshall MO. A letter from Russell Holman Willis, his only son, to Rev. Charles Manly (grandson of Basil Manly and baptist minister in Lexington, VA at what is now called Manly Bapist Church) states that he had finished his sermon on Galatians 5:1 in Bridgewater and was home talking with friends when he “fell prone” and expired. The date was Sunday May 23rd, a little after 12 noon, in Bridgewater. John Milton Willis was laid to rest in Green Hill Cemetery in Buena Vista, Virginia.
CHILDREN OF JOHN MILTON
Russell Holman Willis practiced law with his cousin, A. Willis Robertson in Buena Vista, until after JMW’s death, when he moved to Roanoke, VA.
Julia Gordon Willis was a teacher at the seminary in Buena Vista, VA and just after JMW’s deathe, married Lewis Merrweather Walker (the Willis-Walker families continue to remain friends to this day). The two then moved to Petersburg and lived a long and happy life.
Gladys Willis married A. Willis Robertson who became a long standing US for Virginia, and the two are the parents of Dr. Pat Robertson.
Much of this information comes from a volume entitled Virginia Baptist Ministers By James Barnett Talyor and George Taylor and from this article in Fredericksburg’s Free-Lance Star Newspaper. Green Hill Cemetery’s records show he is likely buried next to Mary Holman at Section 2 Block 16 Lot 157- JM Willis owned spaces 1-8.
