Edwin Willits
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Edwin Willits (April 24, 1830 - October 22, 1896) was a politician from the U.S. State of Michigan.
Willits was born in Otto, New York and moved to Michigan with his parents in September 1836. He graduated from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in June of 1855. The following April he settled in Monroe, Michigan where he was editor of the Monroe Commercial from 1856 to 1861. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in December 1857 and commenced practice in Monroe. He married Jane Ingersoll and was a Presbyterian.
Willits served as prosecuting attorney of Monroe County from 1860 to 1862 and was a member of the State board of education from 1860 to 1872. He was appointed postmaster of Monroe on January 1, 1863, by President Abraham Lincoln, and removed by President Andrew Johnson on October 15, 1866. He was a member of the commission to revise the Michigan Constitution in 1873.
In 1876, Willits was elected as a Republican from Michigan's 2nd congressional district to the 45th United States Congress and subsequently re-elected to the 46th, and 47th Congresses, serving from March 4, 1877 to March 3, 1883. During the Forty-seventh Congress he was chairman of the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of Justice. He was not a candidate for renomination in 1882.
Willits was principal of the Michigan State Normal School at Ypsilanti from 1883 to 1885. He served as president of the State Agricultural College from 1885 to 1889. In Grover Cleveland's first administration, he served as the first Assistant U.S. Secretary of Agriculture under Norman Jay Colman from March 23, 1889 to December 31, 1893.
Willits continued the practice of law in Washington, D.C., until his death there. He was interred in Woodlawn Cemetery in Monroe, Michigan.
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| Preceded by Henry Waldron |
United States Representative for the 2nd Congressional District of Michigan 1877– 1883 |
Succeeded by Nathaniel B. Eldredge |
| Preceded by Theophilus C. Abbot |
President of Michigan Agricultural College 1885 – 1889 |
Succeeded by Oscar Clute |
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