William Willis Papers

William Willis was born in Haverhill, Mass., Aug. 31, 1794, and was the second child of Benjamin and Mary (McKinstry) Willis. In 1803 the family moved to Portland, Maine. William attended Phillips Exeter Academy and graduated at Harvard in 1813. He studied law in Boston and was admitted to the Suffolk bar in 1817 in which year he opened a law office in Boston. He became a law partner with Prentice Mellen until 1820. In Portland he then practiced by himself until 1835 when he became a partner with William Pitt Fessenden, with whom he practiced continuously for twenty years. He died in Portland on Feb. 17, 1870.

Nathaniel Deering was born in 1791 and died in 1881. Like William Willis he attended Phillips Exeter Academy and graduated from Harvard. He settled in Portland, Maine and worked for merchant Asa Clapp but then became a lawyer. He moved to Skowhegan but later returned to Portland. He was also known locally for his interests in poetry and drama along with William Willis and William Pitt Fessenden.

William Pitt Fessenden was born in 1806 and died in 1869, He studied law with Charles S. Daveis, of Portland and in 1835 entered into a law partnership with William Willis, an established attorney some ten years his senior. He later served in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives and was appointed U.S. Secretary of the Treasury from 1864 to 1865.