Henry Willis...

Henry Willis "the Emigrant"

1675-1714

10th Great Uncle

Flight to America in the Midst of Religious Persecution

Henry Willis, my 10^th great granduncle, was born on September 14, 1628 in Wiltshire, England.  He and his wife Mary Peace were very devoted people.  His story is typical of thousands of people who fled their own countries to immigrate to America, the new world being built on the principles of religious freedom.  During those years, Europe was a place of stifling religious intolerance and persecution.

Henry was a carpenter by trade, and in 1666, London had caught fire so there was a great need for skilled labor for rebuilding the city.  The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through the central parts of the city from Sunday, the 2^nd of September to Wednesday, the 5^th of September 1666.  The fire gutted the medieval city inside the old Roman city wall. It consumed 13,200 houses, 87 parish churches, St. Paul’s Cathedral and most of the government buildings of the city. It is estimated that it destroyed the homes of 70,000 of the city's 80,000 inhabitants. 

Henry and his family moved to London, where they remained for seven or eight years.  At the time, a new religious sect, the Society of Friends, also known as the Quakers, had drawn a lot of attention.  Henry and Mary attended a “reformation meeting” of the Quakers and as a result, they suffered a tremendous amount of “persecution, abuse and annoyance” at the hands of officials, and ultimately they were beaten and imprisoned because of their “peculiar views.”

After being released from prison in about the year 1675, Henry and his family immigrated to America and found a temporary home in the town of Oyster Bay, on Long Island. A year or two thereafter he purchased from Captain John Seaman (my 10^th great grandfather) a piece of land in the adjoining township of Hempstead where he permanently settled.  Henry named this new town, Westbury, after a town in his native England, which it continues to bear to the present day.