Biography

1777 -

Dr. Robert Willits appears to be a son of John and Mary Wilson Willits, his father from Hardwick, Sussex, NJ; and his mother Mary, of Maiden Creek Meeting, Berks County. The Senator was born on February 15, 1777 in NJ, and married Elizabeth Bunn in 1800, Sussex, NJ.   The family split and migrated to different areas of the country, Robert and his wife settling in Beavertown, Selinsgrove, (then Northumberland County), Snyder County before 1810, with a number of cousins from the family’s original American home in Suffolk County New York in the general vicinity.   While his principal vocation was that of a medical doctor, he was also a surveyor and local politician.  Willits helped establish the original boundaries of Union County in 1812; was a member of the state House of Representatives in 1814; Justice of the Peace, Union County, Oct. 1817; and a member of the state Senate, 1819-1822.   In 1826, he was nominated by the county Jacksonian caucus as a candidate for the state House of Representatives; however, he never made the ballot.  He likely died or moved from the area not long after 1826.