A high degree of efficiency is displayed by Willis K. Stetson in the exercise of his duties as librarian of the Free Public Library of New Haven.  Broad knowledge combined with uniform courtesy and helpfulness constitute the salient features of his popularity in office.  His entire training has fitted him for this position, as a period of school teaching preceded his entrance upon his present line of work.

     Mr. Stetson was born at Natick, Massachusetts, May 8, 1858.  His father, Daniel K. Stetson, a native of Norwell, Massachusetts, belongs to one of the early families of that state, the American branch having been founded in 1634 by an ancestor who came from England and established the town of Norwell.  Daniel K. Stetson was for many years a manufacturer of shoe nails and tacks in Massachusetts but in 1887 removed to California, where he passed away, November 26, 1914, at the age of eighty-one years, his birth having occurred in 1833.  His wife, who bore the maiden name of Mary W. Sanborn, was born at Sanbornton, now Tilton, New Hampshire, and she, too, represented an old English family, established in the new world during the early part of the seventeenth century.  She passed away at the age of nearly sevently years, leaving a family of five children, of whom two are living, Willis K. and Frank F., the latter the president of the Los Angeles Canning Company of Los Angeles, California.

    For a year Willis K. Stetson was a pupil in the East Greenwich Academy of Rhode Island, and, following his graduation from the school, he attended Wesleyan University at Middletown, Connecticut, where he won the Bachelor of Arts degree in 1881, while in 1884 the Master of Arts degree was conferred upon him.  He accepted a position in the high school of Ansonia, Connecticut, and later he became librarian in the Wesleyan University, where he remained until January, 1887.  At the same time he filled the position of librarian in the Ruseell Library in Middletown.

   On the 1st of February, 1887, he came to New Haven and organized the Free Public Library of New Haven and has since been at the head of the institution, which has steadily grown and is today a library of which the city has every reason to be proud.

   On the 25th of November, 1886, Mr. Stetson was married in Middletown, Connecticut, to Miss Lillian A. Minor, a native of Hartford, Connecticut, and a daughter of John A. and Ella M. (Sullivan) Minor.  They have become the parents of three children.  John M. was graduated from Yale with the bachelor of Arts degree in 1900 and from Princeton University with the Ph. D. degree.  George A. was graduated from the Sheffield Scientific School with the degrees of Ph. B., in 1910, and M. E. later.  He is now an instructor in Sheffield Scientific School.  Mary M., a graduate of Smith College of the class of 1913, is the wife of Frederick G. Allen.

   Politically Mr. Stetson follows an independent course, voting according to the dictates of his judgment without regard to party ties.  He belongs to the United Congregational church of New Haven and is chairman of its library committee.  He has no other connections, devoting his entire time to his work.  He is thoroughly familiar with the contents of the Free Public Library and, therefore, is of great assistance to its patrons in selecting required volumes.  He has maintained the highest standards in his work, and that he has given splendid satisfaction is indicated in the fact that through the thirty years of its existence the New Haven Library has been under his care.