♀Anna Gillet

Anna Gillet (29 December 1639 – 18 November 1711) was a colonist of Windsor, in the Connecticut Colony^W, and the wife of Samuel Filley, with whom she had eleven children between 1664 and 1683. She was the seventh great-grandmother of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), through her son Josiah Filley (1675–1750).

Marriage

She married Samuel Filley at Windsor on 29 October 1663, “by Mr. Allyn”. The town record, as abstracted in the Barbour Collection of Connecticut vital records, describes the couple as both “of Windsor” but does not name her parents. A history of Windsor published by Henry R. Stiles^W in 1891–92 calls her a daughter of Jonathan Gillett, and two records bear that out: the printed Windsor vital records enter her birth on 29 December 1639 as “Anna, d. Jonathan, Sr.”, and her father’s will of 8 August 1677 names her, “my daughter, Samuel ffyllyes wife”, as a legatee.

When Samuel made his will in December 1711, he described woodland he had bought “of brother Josiah Gillett”. That brother was Josiah, who was baptized at Windsor on 14 July 1650 as a son of Jonathan Gillett.

Family

The same history records that the couple moved to Massaco, the settlement that became Simsbury, in 1669, and afterwards returned to Windsor. In December 1670, the month her husband was taken into full communion, she was admitted to the Windsor church. The Windsor records and the history together give them eleven children, from Anna, born on 16 August 1664, to Mary, born on 14 December 1683. Several died young. According to the history, a daughter Abigail and a son Samuel died before 1674, and a second Samuel was “killed with a cart” on 7 October 1679. A daughter Mary, born in 1667, died on 20 July 1683, and the last child, born that December, was given her name. Anna’s death on 18 November 1711 is entered in the Windsor record as that of “Anna, w. Samuel”. Her husband made his will less than four weeks later, on 12 December, and died on 4 January 1711/12.