William Hills, Hartford Founder

Compiled by Timothy Lester Jacobs, SDFH Genealogist

WILLIAM¹ HILLS, HARTFORD FOUNDER (THOMAS^A) was baptized 27 Dec 1598 in Upminster, Essex, England?, and died Jul 1683 in Hartford, CT. He married (1) PHYLLIS LYMAN bef. 1638 in Hartford, CT, daughter of Hartford Founder RICHARD LYMAN and SARAH ______. She was baptized 12 Sep 1611 in High Ongar, Essex, England, and died bef. 1648 in Hartford, CT. He married (2) MARY _____ bef. Oct 1648 in Hartford, CT. She died abt. 1655 in Hartford, CT. He married (3) MARY WARNER bet. 1655 - 1656 in Hartford, CT, daughter of Hartford Founder ANDREW WARNER and MARY HUMFREY. She was born abt. 1626 in England, and died aft. Feb 1680/81 in Hartford, CT (named in husband William Hills will).

William Hills emigrated to the Massachusetts Bay colony aboard the ship “William & Francis”. The Roxbury, Massachusetts church records state about him: “William Hills, a man servant, he came over in the year 1632. He married Phyllis Lyman, the daughter of {Hartford founder} Richard Liman. He removed to Conecticott where he lived several years, without giving such good satisfaction to the consciences of the saints”. He was made Freeman in Roxbury on 14 May 1634, and removed to Hartford in 1636. In the Hartford land inventory of February 1639/40 he held nine parcels of land: one acre and one rood with dwelling house, outhouses, yards and gardens located on west side of the road to Wethersfield, and bounded on the south side by the road from George Steele’s to the South Meadow, and bounded on the north side by the road from the Mill to the South Meadow; seven acres of upland; nine acres of upland; one acre and two roods in the South Meadow; another one acre and two roods in the South Meadow; an additional one acre and one rood in the South Meadow; 517 acres of land in Hockanum; ten acres of meadow in Hockanum; and three acres and twenty-nine roods of meadow also in Hockanum.

He was chosen constable in 1644, but removed early to Hockanum, which was a section of Hartford situated on the east side of the Connecticut River, which became East Hartford in 1783. He was captain of the first train band on the east side of the river in 1653, and (or his son William) was shot by Indians in the beginning of King Philip’s war in 1675. His will was dated 25 February 1681/2.

It should be noted that the date and place of his baptism, and his parentage, is not certain, but was held to be probable by the eminent Donald Lines Jacobus.

Recommended Genealogy: “Genealogical Data Relating to the Ancestry and Descendants of William Hills, the English Emigrant to New England in 1632, and of Joseph Hills, the English Emigrant to New England in 1638”, William Sanford Hills, 1902