Finlay and Willis family manuscript collection

The Willis family emigrated from England to America between the 17th and 18th centuries. Levan C. Willis (1792-1881) was born on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. In 1814, he married Eliza Orndorf, and the two settled on a 500-acre estate in Frederick Co., Maryland called Walnut Grove, later named Williston. Levan Willis was a Democrat and a slave-holder, and both he and his wife were members of the Methodist Protestant Church. Together they had 11 children.

William Lewis Willis (1831-1858), the son of Levan C. Willis and Eliza Orndorf Willis, was born at Herring Run, near Baltimore, Maryland. He studied medicine in Baltimore, where he later practiced. In 1852 he married Frances Ann Finlay, daughter of William and Catherine (Garretson) Finlay. Before her marriage, Miss Finlay attended Linden Hall School For Girls, an independent boarding school in Lititz, Pennsylvania. After their marriage, the couple moved to Frederick County, where Dr. Willis continued to practice medicine at his estate, Sunnyside. Dr. William Lewis Willis died at his home in June 1858 and was buried at Spesutia Church in Harford Co., Maryland. Frances Finlay Willis died in 1900 and was buried beside him.

Louis Orndorf Willis was born in 1857 on his family’s Sunnyside estate in Frederick Co., Maryland, the only living child of Dr. William Lewis Willis and Frances Finlay Willis. For the majority of his education, Louis O. Willis studied at a private school taught by Reverend William F. Brand in Harford Co., Maryland. In 1887, he married Miss Anna Mary Newkirk, and together they had nine children.