WILLIS, William, lawyer, born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, 31 August, 1794; died in Portland, Maine, 17 February, 1870. He was graduated at Harvard in 1813, and after studying law was admitted to the Suffolk bar in January, 1817. Opening an office in Boston, he practised there till April, 1819, when his former preceptor, Prentiss Mellen, having been elected to the United States senate, invited Mr. Willis to take charge of his practice. In 1820, on the organization of the state of Maine, Mr. Mellen became its first chief justice, and then Mr. Willis continued his profession alone until 1835, when he became associated with William P. Fessenden. For twenty years this partnership continued. His tastes never led him toward court-practice, but rather toward conveyancing and other departments of real-estate business, in which he was considered unusually well informed and accurate. In 1855 he was elected to the Maine senate, and in 1859 he became mayor of Portland. He was chosen a Republican presidential elector in 1860, and the degree of LL.D. was conferred on him by Bowdoin in 1867. He was a member of nearly all the state historical societies, including that of Massachusetts, of which in 1867 he was elected vice-president, and in 1855-'9 he was one of the vice-presidents of the New England historic-genealogical society. He became in 1.828 a member of the Maine historical society, of which he was successively recording secretary, treasurer, and then president in 1856-'65. He was also chief editor of all the publications of the society. His publications include "The History of Portland, from its First Settlement, with Notices of the Neighboring Towns, and of the Changes of the Government in Maine, Portland" (2 parts, Portland, 1831-'3: enlarged ed. entitled "The History of Portland from 1632 to 1864," 1865); "Report of the Committee on the Riot in Portland " (1855); " Introductory Address before the Maine Historical Society" (1855); " Inaugural Address before the Maine Historical Society" (1857) : "Genealogy of the McKinstry Family, with a Preliminary Essay on the Scotch-Irish Immigrations to America" (Boston, 1858); " Descriptive Catalogue of Books and Pamphlets relating to Maine" (New York, 1859): and " A History of the Law, the Courts, and the Lawyers of Maine from its First Colonization to the Early Part of the Present Century" (Portland, 1863). See "A Tribute to the Memory of Honorable William Willis," by Charles Henry Hart (Philadelphia, 1870).