Kentucky: A History of the State, Battle, Perrin, & Kniffin, 5th ed., 1887, Jessamine Co. JOHN A. WILLIS was born August 15, 1820, and is a son of William T. and Hetty E. (Howe) Willis, natives respectively of Culpeper County, Va., and Fayette County, Ky., and of English and Scotch descent. The father was but seventeen years of age when he came from Virginia to Green County, Ky., where he married, and subsequently became an eminent lawyer. He moved to Jessamine County in 1843; was twice elected to the State Senate and once to the Lower House; was captain of Company F, Second Regiment, Kentucky Volunteers; went to Mexico in 1846, and fell at Buena Visa February 22-23, 1847. John A. Willis, a native of Green County, after a preliminary education at the common schools, at the age of seventeen entered St. Mary's College, a Catholic institution, his father being an intimate friend of its president. At the close of his collegiate course he went to Harrodsburg, where his parents then lived, and began to read law; was admitted to the bar in 1844, and in 1845 began practice in Nicholasville, Jessamine County. In 1846 he volunteered under his father for the Mexican war; returning in 1847 he taught school two years, and was then appointed master commissioner of the circuit court, filling the position for eighteen years, when he became cashier of the Nicholasville National Bank in which he was a stockholder, and of which he was one of the organizers in 1871, its capital stock then being $60,000, which was increased to $100,000 the year following. He became president of the bank in 1879, and still fills that position. February 11, 1851, he married Miss Margaret Roberts, a daughter of George and Lucy (Reynolds) Roberts, natives of Wayne and Jessamine Counties. Mr. Willis has but one child living, Lucy, wife of Charles Deering, of Jessamine County. Mr. Willis is a member and an elder of the Presbyterian Church, and in politics is a Democrat. Willis Howe Roberts Reynolds Deering = Fayette-KY Green-KY Culpeper-VA http://www.rootsweb.com/~kygenweb/kybiog/jessamine/willis.ja.txt