Thomas Willett was a British-born American merchant, Plymouth Colony trader and sea-captain, Commissioner of New Netherland, magistrate of Plymouth Colony, Captain of the Plymouth Colony militia and was the 1st and 3rd Mayor of New York City, prior to the consolidation of the five boroughs into the City of New York in 1898.
Background
The fourth son of Andrew Willet, he was born in August 1605, in the rectory-house of Barley, Hertfordshire, and was baptised on the 29th of the same month. His father dying when he was only sixteen years of age, he appears to have continued to reside with his widowed mother and maternal grandmother till he came of age.
Career
He was educated at The King"s School, Ely. Shortly after he went to Leyden, and then to the new Plymouth Colony where he gained the trust of Governor William Bradford. He shortly afterwards became a large shipowner, trading with New Amsterdam.
He was elected one of the assistant governors of the Plymouth colony, and acted as arbitrator in disputes between the English and Dutch colonies.
He also became captain of a military company. Early in 1660 he left the town of Plymouth, and, establishing himself in what is now part of Rhode Island, became one of the founders of Swansey.
Accompanying the English commander Richard Nicolls, he contributed to the peaceable surrender of New Amsterdam to the English on September 7, 1664. When the colony received the name of New York, Willett was appointed the first mayor (12 June 1665) and a commissioner of admiralty on August 23, with the approval of English and Dutch alike.
The next year he was elected alderman, and became mayor a second time in 1667.
He retired in 1673, and died in 1674, at the age of sixty-nine. He was buried in the Little Neck Cemetery at Bullock"s Cove, Riverside area of East Providence, Rhode Island. In his religious views, Willett was an independent.
Some have claimed that his great-grandson was Marinus Willett, who also served as Mayor of New York, from 1807-1808.
This claim has been refuted by East. Haviland Hillman in an article published in The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Volume 47 at 119, published in April 1916. The descendants of Thomas Willett were numerous.
The "Dorothy Q." of the poem of Oliver Wendell Holmes was Thomas Willett"s great-granddaughter, and the great-grandmother of Holmes. The Fire Department of New York operated a fireboat named Thomas Willett from 1908 to 1959.
Membership
He was a member of the New York governor"s executive council from 1665 to 1672 under Richard Lovelace.