Gordons, Wemyss, Whitehouse

Wylly, Alexander Campbell. Origin: Loyalist.

Alexander Wylly and wife Margaret Armstrong emigrated to the Province of Georgia from Belfast, Ireland, in 1750. Alexander Campbell Wylly was their second son. When the “rebellion” broke out, the elder Alexander remained loyal to the Crown and joined the King’s Rangers. Alexander Campbell was at that time a student in Oxford, England. On hearing of the “rebellion,” he joined the British Army and returned to Georgia. His name, written as “Campbel Wylly,” is on the list of Loyalists Banished from Georgia (1783). His father’s estate in Georgia, “Colerain,” was confiscated and sold by the government.

Alexander Campbell Wylly went to Nassau and there married Margaret Armstrong of Nassau, formerly of North Carolina. In 1788 he received a grant of land on Abaco. We found an indenture dated 31 August 1789 between William Armstrong the elder, planter of Abaco, and William Armstrong the younger of Abaco that shows that the Armstrong land was bounded by the land of Alex. C. Wylly, establishing a pattern or relationships that carried onto Long Island, as well.

Wylly then received a grant of 400 acres of land on Long Island in 1790, and he and his wife may have subsequently lived there (in Wemyss). However, he subsequently received a second Long Island grant in the Whitehouse Area, and a third grant of 300 acres on 16 March 1801 in Gordon’s, in what was referred to by the ambitious name of “Cotton Park” (possibly the plantation name?) in an indenture with John Anderson. This last grant was bounded by the land of Edward Murry, John Anderson, the sea, and a pond.

On 9 November 1803, Wylly notified the House of Assembly of his intention to move to the United States. He is listed in Homeward Bound as a planter and Speaker of the House. His will was signed 2 July 1827 on St. Simon Island, Georgia, where he died in 1833.

Alexander Campbell’s sister, Susan (Susannah) Crooks Wylly, married the Loyalist John Anderson of Savannah, Georgia. John also received a land grant on Long Island.

References: HB App E, Parrish