George Wyllys

Who was George Wyllys?

George Wyllys or Wyllis served for a year as one of the early governors of the Connecticut Colony.

Born at the manor of Fenny Compton in Warwickshire, England, to Richard and Hester Willis, part of an old, wealthy family. He attended several universities, "but biographers make no mention of him graduating," according to an online biographical sketch of Wyllys at the Connecticut State Library and Museum Web site.

He may well have become a Puritan in his university years.

He married Bridget Yonge/Young on 2 November 1609 at the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-on-Avon. They had three children before she died in 1629. In 1631 he married again, this time to Mrs. Mary Brisbey. They had one son.

The family emigrated to New England in the early 1630s. By 1634, Wyllys had been appointed an Assistant to the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

In 1636, Wyllys sent his steward, William Gibbons, to Hartford along with 20 domestics and indentured servants in order to buy land and oversee construction of a house. That house was the largest home of any of Hartford's early settlers and one of the largest in Connecticut. The famous Charter Oak stood on the property.