George Wyllys, Governor of Connecticut

Abt 1590 - 1645  (~ 55 years)

• Name	George Wyllys  [1, 2]
  Suffix	Governor of Connecticut
  Birth	Abt 1590	of Fenny Compton, Warwickshire, England   [3]
  Gender	Male
  Alternate birth	Abt 1591	of Fenny Compton, Warwickshire, England   [3]
  Death	9 Mar 1645	Hartford, Hartford, Connecticut   [4, 5]
  Person ID	I15481	Ancestry of PNH, TNH, and others
  Last Modified	12 Nov 2021

  
  

  Father	Richard Wyllys,   b. of Fenny Compton, Warwickshire, England d. Aft 10 Jun 1597
  Mother	Hester Chambers
  Family ID	F10210	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family 1	Mary Smith   d. Aft 9 Mar 1645
  Children	+ 1. Samuel Wyllys,   b. 1632, Fenny Compton, Warwickshire, England d. 30 May 1709, Hartford, Hartford, Connecticut (Age 77 years)
  Family ID	F9758	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	12 Oct 2017

  
  

  Family 2	Bridget Yonge   d. Bef 11 Mar 1629
  Children	1. Amy Wyllys,   b. Abt 1625   d. 9 Jan 1698, Springfield, Hampden, Massachusetts (Age ~ 73 years)
  Family ID	F11720	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	7 Dec 2018

  
  

• Notes

  Member of the Massachusetts general court, 1634; one of the framers of the Connecticut constitution, 1639; assistant governor of Connecticut, 1639-40; deputy governor of Connecticut, 1641; governor of Connecticut, 1642. His name is on the Founders Monument in Hartford, Connecticut. From Timothy Lester Jacobs at the Founders of Hartford site: George Wyllys was the wealthiest, and one of the most powerful and influential men in the early Connecticut Colony. Son and heir of Richard Wyllys, Lord of Fenny Compton, Warwickshire, England, he sent in 1636 his steward, Hartford Founder William Gibbons, with 20 men, servants and workers, to purchase and prepare his estate, erect a dwelling house and have everything in readiness for him and his family. This estate, at seven acres and three roods, was one of the largest in Hartford, and was the site of the famous Charter Oak. (When Sir Edmund Andros attempted to seize the Connecticut Colony in 1687, Capt. Joseph Wadsworth, son of William Wadsworth, Hartford Founder, hid the Charter for the Colony in this tree.) George Wyllys left Fenny Compton for Hartford soon after 6 April 1638, when he conveyed his lands in Old Stratford, Wellcombe, and Bishopston to Richard Smarte. He left the manor in Fenny Compton to the care of his son George, who remained in England and became Lord of the Manor at Fenny Compton. In the Hartford land inventory of February 1639/40 he held: the seven acre, three rood parcel with dwelling house, other outhouses, and yards, gardens or orchards mentioned above; one hundred-ten acres and two roods lying partly in the South Meadow, partly in the Swamp and partly in the Oxpasture; twenty five acres, one rood and twenty perches lying in Hockanum; another nine acres, two roods and thirty perches also in Hockanum; three acres and two roods of swamp by the Great River; another four acres of swamp by the Great River; five acres of meadow again in Hockanum; another twelve acres in the swamp in Hockanum; and five acres in the South Meadow. On 25 September 1668 he also acquired six hundred acres of upland on the east side of the Great River. He was chosen magistrate in 1639, 1640, 1643 and 1644; was Deputy Governor in 1641; and became Governor of the Connecticut Colony in 1642. He was also Commissioner of the United Colonies.

  
  

• Sources

  [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. [S5932] Robert Charles Anderson, "The Literary Pedigree of the Author Thomas Pynchon." New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 146:165, 2015. [S142] Royal Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families by Douglas Richardson. Salt Lake City, 2013. [S6117] Mary K. Talcott, "The Wyllys Family of Connecticut." The New England Historical and Genealogical Register 37:33, Jan 1883. [S142] Royal Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families by Douglas Richardson. Salt Lake City, 2013., date and province only.