• He emigrated to Massachusetts Bay Colony, Boston, sailing from Downs in the ship
Griffin July 15th, 1633, in company with Rev. Thomas Hooker, Rev. Wm. Stone, Rev. John Cotton and the Hon. John Haynes. The ship
Griffin brought from England many of Hooker’s church in Braintree, numbering more than a hundred persons. The vessel landed in Boston Harbor, Sept. 4, 1633. Hooker and his associates located in Newtown (now Cambridge), Mass., where a church had been previously erected to accomodate the new comers.
4180, p 34• Richard Risley, with the Hooker Company, was one of the original founders of the Commonwealth of Connecticut.
Richard and Mary, his wife, lived on the east of the “Great River.”
4180, p 35
• William Hills, doubtless the first of the name to land in New England, was probably a native of the County of Essex, in the mother country, the shire in which Joseph Hills was born and from which he emigrated in 1638. As has been stated researches in England point strongly to the probability that they had a common ancestor, who was living about two hundred years before they left Old for New England.
1167, p 1• The next record concerning him proves that as a resident of Roxbury he was admitted a freeman of that town on the 14th of May, 1634.
1167, p 1• ...who was also one of the landed proprietors of Hartford. He lived at Hockanum, on the east side of the “Great River,” and was possessed of some military talent.
4180, p 36
• The proof of the marriage of Mary with Mr. Hill (Hills) is found in the inventory of Richard Risley’s estate and the book of distribution in the Hartford clerk’s office, p. 219, it is recorded that on Feb. 26, 1680, Thomas Bunse bought land of Wm. Hills in Podunk Swamp, which formerly belonged to Richard Risley and came to said Hill by right of his wife mary, “relict of said Risley.” The land was a part of the early undivided lands belonging to Richard Risley and others of Hartford.
4180, p 37