Willard was born Berlin, Connecticut and was the 17th child of Samuel Hart. She attended a district school at Worthington Point. Emma had started teaching at the age of 17 and shortly after turning 20, she received teaching job offers from Westfield, Massachusetts, Middlebury, Vermont, and Hudson, New York. She accepted the offer from Vermont and moved there. In 1809 she married Dr. John Willard. In 1814, after moving to New York, Emma helped start a school called Middlebury Female seminary in Waterford, New York. Emma opened the Waterford Academy in 1819 but it had to be closed in 1821 because of a lack of funding. In September, however, the city of Troy requested the school to be moved there, and Willard accepted the offer. She co-authored, "A System of Universal Geography on the Principles of Comparison and Classification".