Alexander William Wylley

Topic: Early Versions - Performers
H. Wylie recorded a version of "Come by Here" for Robert Winslow Gordon in Georgia. Steven Winick believed it was done in the last part of April in 1926 near Darien. [1]

I found nothing more about him on the internet, not even a hint of a first name. [2] His surname may have come from Alexander William Wylley, who owned 102 slaves in McIntosh County in 1850, or from his mother, Margaret Wylly, who owned 52 in Glynn County. [3]

In the next census, taken on the eve of the Civil War, A. W. [4] was growing rice with 46 slaves on The Forest plantation some twenty miles north of Darien, [5] while his sisters Matilda and Harriet owned 34 bondsmen on Saint Simons Island. [6] Darien was in McIntosh County, while Saint Simons was to the south in Glynn. These locations were marked on the map posted 3 February 2019.

Tom Blake found seven African-American Wyllys in the 1870 census. All were born in the United States, but none were born or living in Glynn County. [7] He only was looking at names within counties. These suggests one or two families took their surnames from A. W. rather than from other members of his family living in McIntosh County.

Wylley’s grandfather, Alexander Wylly, was born in Colerain, Derry, [8] and migrated to Savannah in 1750. [9] He became a merchant and grew rice and indigo on 600 acres he purchased from the British government. [10]

Alexander was associated with the conservative faction in the legislature. After the Revolutionary War began, he moved to Tybee Island in 1776 where his home was attacked, his goods seized, and he was temporarily arrested. Destitute, he moved to the British territory of East Florida. [11]

His sons returned to Florida from England, where they had been in college, and joined the loyalist military band [12] commanded by Thomas Brown. In 1778, the British took Savannah. Alexander returned from Florida, and was hired as a clerk by the royal governor. [13]

After the British surrendered at Yorktown in 1781, the army planned a retreat that included taking the loyalists and their slaves with them. Some went immediately to Florida, only to have that territory given back to the Spanish in the Treaty of Paris in 1783. The same treaty ceded the Bahamas to England and families began relocating there. [14]

Alexander was allowed to return to Savannah, but his sons were not forgiven. [15] A. W.’s Uncle William went to New Brunswick before moving to the Bahamas, where he joined Brown in lobbying for more power for the loyalists in the government. [16]

A. W.’s father remained relatively anonymous. Alexander Campbell Wylly was granted land on Caicos, but there was no sign he used the grant, [17] even though he was appointed Justice of the Peace there in 1791. [18] Instead, he served as speaker of the colonial house for much of the time between 1798 and 1802. [19]

He married Margaret Armstrong, the daughter of another loyalist. [20] William Armstrong died in 1790, and, some time after, his widow, Anne, left the islands with many of her children. [21] A. C. moved to Spanish-controlled Saint Augustine in 1802. [22]

Next, A. C. took his wife and seven children to Jekyll Island in 1803. [23] Thomas Spalding’s father-in-law, Richard Leake, had traded the island to Christophe Poulain DuBignon for his share of Sapelo Island. DuBignon was escaping the consequences of the French Revolution. [24]

In 1810, A. C. left Jekyll for Saint Simons, where he leased a house. In 1812, he was able to buy The Village Plantation. [25] His wife’s family stayed on the Saint Clair plantation. [26] It’s not known how accepted the unrepentant loyalists were on Saint Simons, especially during the War of 1812 when the British menaced the island. [27] Their youngest son, John, was killed by a neighbor in a dispute over a boundary in 1838. [28]

Spalding’s father was a loyalist merchant banished to Florida who had been allowed to return after the war. [29] Thomas sold his father’s land of Saint Simons to finance his purchase of Sapelo Island. [30] His daughter, Elizabeth, married A. W. in 1830 and moved to a plantation on the other side of Sapelo Sound on the Sapelo River. [31]

End Notes
1. Stephen Winick. "The World’s First ‘Kumbaya’ Moment: New Evidence about an Old Song." Folklife Center News 34(3–4): 3–10:2010. 6.

2. It is not known if Wylie spelled his name this way, or if Gordon transcribed what he heard without knowing the local nomenclature. I am not standardizing, but using the spellings ascribed to each individual. Since it is an unusual name, I’m also assuming any of the variants found in the Darien area refer to the same group.

3. Jack F. Cox. The 1850 Census of Georgia Slave Owners. Baltimore: Clearfield Company, 1999. 346.

4. I am using initials for convenience. Alexander William Wylley’s (A. W.) grandfather was Alexander Wylly, his father was Alexander Campbell Wylly (A. C.), and this brother was William Wylly. There’s no indication this was how they were known.

5. Buddy Sullivan. Early Days on the Georgia Tidewater. Darien, Georgia: McIntosh County Board of Commissioners, 1990. 789. He said the plantation was 1.5 miles east of Eulonia.

6. Tom Blake, "Glynn County, Georgia: Largest Slaveholders from 1860 Slave Census Schedules and Surname Matches for African Americans on 1870 Census." RootsWeb website. February, 2002.

7. Blake.
8. "Alexander Wylly (1731 - 1781)." Ancestry website.
9. Charlene Kozy. "Casualties of War." Times of the Islands website. Fall 2018.

10. Works Projects Administration, Savannah Unit. Georgia Writer’s Project. "Colerain Plantation. Part II." The Georgia Historical Quarterly 25:39–66:1941. 39.

11. Sandra Riley and Thelma B. Peters. Homeward Bound. Miami: Island Research, 2000 edition. 124–125.

12. William Wylly. "Evidence de bene Esse, on the Claim of Capt. Alex’r Campbell Wylly, late of Georgia." 20 November 1788. Ontario. Bureau of the Archives. Report 49. 294.

13. Lorenzo Sabine. Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1864. 599.

14. Riley. Chapter 11.
15. William Wylly.

16. Paul Daniel Shirley. "Migration, Freedom and Enslavement in the Revolutionary Atlantic: The Bahamas, 1783–c. 1800." PhD dissertation. University College of London, October 2011. Riley said he went to Nova Scotia [page 274]

17. Kozy, Casualties. Times of the Islands website. Fall 2010.

19. Wikipedia. "List of Speakers of the House of Assembly of the Bahamas. Wylly served from 30 October 1798 to 16 November 1800, and from 6 October 1801 to 15 March 1802.

20. James E. Bagwell. Rice Gold: James Hamilton Couper and Plantation Life on the Georgia Coast. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2000. 16.

21. Riley. 270.
22. Kozy, King’s Men.

23. June Hall McCash. Jekyll Island’s Early Years. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005. 99.

24. Martha L. Keber. "DuBignon Family." New Georgia Encyclopedia website. 10 February 2003; last updated by 30 October 2014.

25. "The Plantation Era and Christ Church, Frederica, St. Simons Island, Georgia." Oatland Plantation website. March 2007. 10–11.

26. Oatland. 10.

27. Based on conversations with James Hamilton Couper, Charles Lyell wrote: "During the last war, when Admiral Cockburn was off this coast with his fleet, he made an offer of freedom to all the slaves belonging to the father of my present host, and a safe convoy to Canada." (A Second Visit to the United States. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1849. 1:266.)

28. Oatland. 11.

29. According to Sabine, James Spalding was attained, and his property confiscated in 1778. [2:579]

30. Buddy Sullivan. "Thomas Spalding (1774-1851)." New Georgia Encyclopedia website. 14 May 2003; last updated 21 February 2018.

31. Sullivan, Early Days. 216.