Samuel Wyllys was a child of young Hartford. Born
in Fenny Compton, England in 1632 to George and Mary Wyllys, by 1638 the
six-year old had survived an Atlantic voyage, had lived in early Boston
while his father was Assistant to the Court of Magistrates, and had
moved to the mud streets of Hartford, with his parents and older
half-sisters Amy and Hester. An older half-brother, George, stayed
behind in England to care for the estate.
Samuel's life was privileged for the place and time, his wealthy father sending a steward over two years before to build one of the largest
houses in Hartford. The town was an ideal place for a young boy -- the
trappers, the Indians, the river, the excitement of building up a new
place in the wilderness. Samuel surely absorbed it all, along with the
sense of responsibility to develop a "godly society," felt so deeply by
his father and other leading Connecticut men.
His father George, active in the fledgling colony's government, was elected to
the Court of Assistants (the early version of the upper house of a
legislature) in 1639, then as Deputy Governor (1641), and Governor
(1642). The United Congress of the New England Colonies was formed in
1643, and he was a representative to that before dying in 1645.
Samuel was thirteen years old then, just at the age when a young man
would seriously decide his life's direction. George Wyllys' wealth and
high position in the Connecticut Colony made the best schooling and the
best social and political connections available to young Samuel. Thomas
Hooker was still alive, as well as
John Winthrop, Jr., men with whom his father had governed.
It was about 1649 when Samuel began his studies at Harvard College.
There he received a classical education, with emphasis on Greek, Latin,
rhetoric, and the ability to debate. He graduated in 1653 in a class of
nine, and, like other students, often paid his fees in bushels of wheat.
Samuel's life-long government service to the Colony of Connecticut began
on March 6, 1653/4 when the General Court voted that he be nominated as
a magistrate at the next General Court of Election. He was 21 years
old. In May 1654, he followed in his father's footsteps with his election to the
Court of Assistants, in which position he was reelected annually through
1684, in 1689 through 1692, and in 1698. Over the years, when the
Governor and Deputy Governor could not be present, a Moderator of the
General Court was elected by the Court. Samuel Wyllys often was the
person chosen to fill that position.
Saybrook was Samuel's destination in 1659, when the General Court of
Connecticut directed him to go there to assist Major John Mason in examining
some witchcraft accusations. This was a good preparation for the
future, as Hartford had some important witchcraft trials in 1662.
Samuel Wyllys was a magistrate on a June 6, 1662 Quarter Court and a
June 13, 1662 Particular Court concerning the cases of Andrew and Mary
Sanford. Mary was indicted for "not haueing the feare of God before
thine eyes" and "familiarity wth Satan".
In 1662, Connecticut also received its Royal Charter. Samuel was one of
the patentees and was of sufficient status to be the first-named
Assistant (after the Governor and Deputy Governor) in that document, a
name placement which was a high honor. He was in Boston when the
Charter arrived from England on September 6, 1662, was one of those who
escorted the Charter from Boston to Hartford, and on October 9, 1662 he,
along with John Talcot and Lt. John Allyn were chosen "to take the
Charter into their custody...
The 1660s further found Samuel Wyllys serving as a commissioner, as had
his father, to the United Colonies of New England. Samuel's, however,
was longer, being for four years (1661-2, 1664, 1667).
War came again in 1675 with the start of King Phillip's War. It was in
full force in 1676, when the General Court of Connecticut asked Samuel
Wyllys to work with
John Winthrop (Fitz-John) and Thomas Stanton to find a way to make
peace between the Native Americans and the English. The project was not
successful, as the war only began to end when "King Philip" (Metacomet)
was killed in August of 1676 in Rhode Island.
Samuel Wyllys married Ruth Haynes, daughter of Connecticut's first
governor,
John Haynes, about 1655. The couple had three daughters -- Mary,
Mehitabel, and Ruth, who all married into prominent New England
families. The Wyllyses also had one son, Hezekiah (b.1672), who was
Secretary of the Colony of Connecticut from 1712 to 1735.
The Wyllys' political, and consequent social, position placed them at
the center of events in the colony. The Wyllys mansion also was only
two blocks from the center of Hartford. A small glimpse into an event at
the house comes through the 1663 testimony of Daniel and Margaret
Garrett against Elizabeth Seager, who was accused of witchcraft. The
Garretts, in that testimony, refer twice to events at "the fast at Mr.
Willis".1 A Puritan fast could be set for any day, and meant
going without food for a while, then meeting together for prayers and
sermons, a meal, and more prayers and sermons.2 Puritans
fasted to thank or to appease God, to humble themselves, and to ask for
favors from the Almighty. To say that one had been at a fast would
indicate a certain degree of godliness. The Wyllys home, one of the
largest in Hartford, would have been large enough to accommodate a small
congregation.
Anyone going to that fast at the Wyllys house, travelling along the
north side of the Wyllys property, would have passed a huge oak tree.
When the Wyllys house was built in 1636, the Indians were said to have
pleaded with George Wyllys not to cut down the tree, saying that when
its leaves were the size of a mouse's ear, they knew it was time to
plant their crops. Tradition also has it that when Joseph Wadsworth
took action to prevent the surrender of the Charter to Sir Edmund Andros
in early November 1687, he took it to the Wyllys home. Samuel was away
on business in the West Indies at the time, in Antigua, where he had
several sugar plantations. There was no safe place in the house to hide
the Charter, so Samuel's wife, the story goes, directed him to hide it
in a small cavity in the giant oak. She then put the watchdog and his
house in front of that cavity. The tree has come to be known as the
Charter Oak.
Samuel Wyllys' affairs in Antigua did not always do well, and in 1685 he
was in so much financial distress that he resigned from the Court of
Assistants. The Court of Assistants, evidently considering his long
years in Connecticut's government, later helped him with his debts.
It was 1693 that saw one of the most famous witchcraft trials in
Connecticut, that of Mercy Disborough. After a jury found Mercy guilty
of familiarity with Satan and after being sentenced to death, Samuel
Wyllys was one of three Assistants granting a stay of execution. Mercy
was eventually acquitted.
Ruth Wyllys died sometime before November 28, 1688, for it was then that
Samuel married for the second time. The bride was Mrs. Mary (Smith)
Love, and the wedding was at Berwick, Maine.
Samuel Wyllys died May 30, 1709, still living in the home his father
built. He was buried in Hartford's Ancient Burying Ground. Through
all his years of service to the Colony of Connecticut, many official
documents came into Samuel Wyllys' possession, which were carefully
preserved by successive generations of the Wyllys family. They
included a large bundle of papers pertaining to trials for witchcraft
and other crimes that has come to be known as the "Samuel Wyllys Papers".
Browse the Samuel Wyllys Papers
There is no known portrait of Samuel Wyllys.
References:
1 Taylor, John M. The Witchcraft
Delusion in Colonial Connecticut. Williamstown, MA: Corner House
Publishers 1974, p. 80. [CSL Call Number BF1576 .T25 1874]
2 Though the main article does not deal with the topic of
fasting, there is a good definition of the Puritan fast on pages 40-41
of: Freeman, Thomas, "Demons, Deviance and Defiance: John Darrell and
the Politics of Exorcism in Late Elizabethan England." In Studies in
Modern British Religious History: Conformity and Orthodoxy in the
English Church c.1560-1660. Edited by Peter Lake and Michael
Questier, pp. 34 -63. Found online at
http://books.google.com/books?id=7QGuVwbcmaMC&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=%22puritan+fasting%22&s
Additional Sources:
Barbour, Lucius Barnes. Families of Early
Hartford, Connecticut. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co.,
Inc., 1977 [CSL call number HistRef F 104.H353 A22 1977]. See pp.
696-700 for information on the Wyllys family.
Hinman, R. R. Catalogue of the Names of the First Puritan Settlers
of the Colony of Connecticut... Hartford: Printed by E. Gleason,
1846 [CSL call number SpecColl F 93 .H65]. See pp. 108-9.
Report of the State Librarian to the Governor for the Two Years Ended
September 30 1908. Hartford: Published by the State, 1909 [CSL
call number ConnDoc St 292 1908].
Seymour, George Dudley. Captain Nathan Hale 1755-1776: Yale College
1773 Major John Palsgrave Wyllys 1754-1790: Yale College 1773, Friends
and Yale Classmates... New Haven: Privately Printed for the Author,
1933 [CSL call number E 280 .H2 S512].
Sibley, John Langdon. Biographical Sketches of Graduates
of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Volume I: 1642-1658,
"Samuel Willis," pp. 323-325. (Cambridge: Charles William
Sever, University Bookstore, 1873) [CSL Call Number LD 2139 .S5].
Talcott, Mary K. The Original Proprietors. Hartford: Society
of the Descendants of the Founders of Hartford, Inc., 1986 [CSL call
number HistRef F 104 .H353 A28 1986]. See pp. 271-2.
Tomlinson, R. G. Witchcraft Trials of Connecticut. [s.l.]: R.G.
Tomlinson, 1978 [CSL call number BF 1576 .T65 1978]. See pp. 67-8 for a
brief overview of the Samuel Wyllys Papers.
The Wyllys Papers: Correspondence and Documents Chiefly of
Descendants of Gov. George Wyllys of Connecticut, 1590-1796.
Hartford: Connecticut Historical Society, 1924 [CSL call number F 91
.C7 v. 21].
Prepared by Bonnie Linck, History and Genealogy Unit,
Connecticut State Library, October 2008.
