Samuel Wyllys

1632 - 1709  (77 years)

• Name	Samuel Wyllys  [1]
  Birth	1632	Fenny Compton, Warwickshire, England   [2, 3, 4]
  Gender	Male
  Death	30 May 1709	Hartford, Hartford, Connecticut   [4, 5, 6]
  Burial	Ancient Burying Ground, Hartford, Hartford, Connecticut   [3]
  Person ID	I15480	Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others
  Last Modified	12 Nov 2021

  
  

  Father	George Wyllys, Governor of Connecticut,   b. Abt 1590, of Fenny Compton, Warwickshire, England d. 9 Mar 1645, Hartford, Hartford, Connecticut (Age ~ 55 years)
  Mother	Mary Smith   d. Aft 9 Mar 1645
  Family ID	F9758	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Ruth Haynes,   b. Abt 1636   d. Bef 28 Nov 1688 (Age ~ 52 years)
  Children	+ 1. Mehitable Wyllys,   b. Abt 1658   d. 21 Dec 1698, Hartford, Hartford, Connecticut (Age ~ 40 years)
  Family ID	F9757	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	8 Oct 2017

  
  

• Notes

  From the Samuel Wyllys Papers site (citation details below): Samuel was chosen magistrate of the General Court in 1654 and reelected each year. After Connecticut received its charter in 1662 he was elected as an Assistant and continued in that office until 1685. He often served as moderator when the Governor or Deputy Governor were not present. Financial distress from sugar plantations in Antigua led him to resign from the General Court in 1685. However, he returned to his position as Assistant from 1689 through 1692 and again in 1698. Between 1658 and 1670 he sat on courts that tried witchcraft cases and as an Assistant in 1693 he was one of three judges that granted a stay to Mercy Disborough who was later acquitted. When Connecticut's charter arrived in Boston in September 1662, Wyllys was one of the men that brought it to Hartford. He served as a commissioner to the United Colonies of New England in 1661, 1662, 1664, and 1667. In 1676, during King Philip's War, he was authorized along with Major John Winthrop and Thomas Stanton to negotiate for a peace between the English and the Indians. According to tradition, when Joseph Wadsworth took action to prevent the surrender of the Charter to Sir Edmond Andros in early November 1687, he took it to Samuel Wyllys's home. At the suggestion of Wylly's wife, Wadsworth hid the Charter in a hollow of an oak tree and then put the dog kennel at the foot of the tree. The tree has come to be known as the Charter Oak.

  
  

• Sources

  [S142] Royal Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families by Douglas Richardson. Salt Lake City, 2013. [S1511] Genealogies of the Lymans of Middlefield, of the Dickinsons of Montreal, and of the Partridges of Hatfield, by Jas. T. Dickinson. Boston: David Clapp & Son, 1865. [S6116] Samuel Wyllys Papers at the Connecticut State Library. [S6117] Mary K. Talcott, "The Wyllys Family of Connecticut." The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 37:33, Jan 1883. [S1511] Genealogies of the Lymans of Middlefield, of the Dickinsons of Montreal, and of the Partridges of Hatfield, by Jas. T. Dickinson. Boston: David Clapp & Son, 1865., year only. [S6116] Samuel Wyllys Papers at the Connecticut State Library., date only.