Hyslop, William

last name (variants): Hayslop
honorific(s): Mr.
Birth: September 26, 1714 in Haddington, Scotland
Death: August 11, 1796 in Boston, MA
Affiliation

Boston Board of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge

Faith

Congregationalist (Old Light?)

Nationality

Scottish

Occupation

Merchant: Importer

Residence(s)
  • Boston, MA ( to 1796-08-11)
Marital status

Married Mehetable Stoddard in 1750. One of their daughters married Increase Sumner, a future governor of Massachusetts. His grandson, William Hyslop Sumner, was a well-known general and historian.

Biography

William Hyslop was a Boston merchant and a member of the Boston Board of the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge (SSPCK). His business was importing goods from Scotland, especially Bibles. He was very involved in the Brattle Street Church, and had close ties to the Chauncy family (an Old Light family, one of whom, Charles Chauncy, was chair of the Boston SSPCK). In 1760, Hyslop began assisting Wheelock with the process of obtaining funds from the Boston SSPCK, and he also put Wheelock in touch with other Boston merchants who had their own charitable organization (Moses Peck and William Whitwell’s “private society”). As Wheelock’s relationship with the Boston SSPCK soured in the first half of the 1760s, culminating in Wheelock’s decision to open the Connecticut Board of the SSPCK in 1764, Wheelock’s and Hyslop’s personal and trade relationship also ceased.

Sources

Bridgman, Thomas. The Pilgrims of Boston and Their Descendants. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1856. Accessed via GoogleBooks. Dartmouth College Archives, MS 760666, 761230.2. Sumner, William Hyslop and Trask, William Blake. Memoir of Increase Sumner, Governor of Massachusetts. Boston: Samuel G. Drake, 1854. Accessed via GoogleBooks.