Biography

Sylvester Willard graduated from Albany Medical College in 1848, was secretary of the New York Medical Society from 1857-1865, and was elected president of the Albany County Medical Society in 1858. He was a volunteer surgeon in the Civil War starting in 1862, and in 1865 because Surgeon General of New York State, although he died soon after the appointment. He was an advocate for helping the poor, and urged the necessity of building a large asylum for the poor in New York, and such a bill was passed after Willard's death. The institution was named Willard Asylum for the Insane, and it became one of the largest of the kind in the country.