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Archilaus HILLS
1621 - 1679 (~ 57 years)
Has 8 ancestors and 2 descendants in this family tree.
Set As Default Person 
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Name Archilaus HILLS Relationship 
with Teresa Ann GOATHAM Born - I think it most likely that the Hercules Hills who was a planter in Scituate in America before returning to England (to live in Rochester) was this Archilaus / Hercules but I could be merging two people. See research notes below for my thinking on this.
Baptised 4 Nov 1621 Ss. Peter and Paul’s Church, Boughton under Blean, Kent, England 
- From PR entry (image on FMP, viewed 27 Sep 2020)
"The 4th day of Novembr baptiz Archelaus Hilles the sonne of William Hilles."
Gender Male Residence Bef 1636 Scituate, Plymouth Co., Massachusetts, USA Arrived - Hercules is said to have been in Scituate in 1636.
Oath 1636 Scituate, Plymouth Co., Massachusetts, USA Oath of Fidelity - Hercules Hills appears on a list of those who signed this between 1633 and 1668.
He is said to have been in Scituate in 1636 so I am guessing that this was the date he signed.
Occupation Between 1636 and 1652 Scituate, Plymouth Co., Massachusetts, USA Planter - From 1660/1 deed.
Occupation 1637 New England, USA Soldier in the Pequot War - Hercules is said to have been a soldier in this war in the History of Scituate, Massachusetts, from its first settlement to 1831. This can be viewed online here. The source is unclear.
Wikipedia article about the war.
Residence Bef 1652 Scituate, Plymouth Co., Massachusetts, USA Left - In the deed recording Hercules sale of land in 1661 he says:
"which said upland and marsh I the said Hercules Hills then of Scittuate aforsaid plantor late purchased to mee and my heires".
Clearly before 1660/61 when Hercules was in Rochester, probably before he had children baptised in Rochester in 1652 and 1653, although it is possible he want to America and returned between these dates.
Tax 25 Sep 1660 Eastgate Borough, Rochester, Kent, England Poll Tax Assessment - Hercules and his wife are listed as paying the Poll tax in Rochester in 1660; transcription here, Hercules on p.28, PDF p. 29.
They were assessed at 4 shilings, with free estate and stock worth £8.
Property 16 Mar 1660/61 Rochester, Kent, England Sale of land in America - A deed records a sale by Hercules HIlls to Edward Goodwin, a shipwirght of Chatham, signed by Hercules in Rochester.
A transcription of it can be viewed online here.
Misc. 1666 St. Nicholas’ Church, Rochester, Kent, England Impact of the Great Plague: death of a maid - The usual flow of the burial register is interupted by "A note of them that dyed of the plague & other diseases from the 23th of Aprill 1666". (On the CityArk website, PDF p. 1) I imagine this was when there were too many deaths for usual burial practices but plague pits used instead. The list includes "Hercules Hills his maid".
(it does not distinguish between those dying of the plague and of 'other diseases' so it is probable but not certain that Hercules' maid died from the plague).
Also known as Hercules HILLS Buried 14 Mar 1678/79 St. Nicholas’ Church, Rochester, Kent, England - From PR entry (image on CityArk, PDF p.10, viewed 28 Sep 2020)
"Hercules Hills was buried the 14th day of March 1678"
Siblings2 brothers and 3 sisters Patriarch & Matriarch 
William HILLS, [Children?], b. Est 1520, bur. 29 Feb 1587/88, Ss. Peter and Paul’s Church, Boughton under Blean, Kent, England (Age ~ 68 years) (Great Grandfather) 
Marie LEDGER, bap. 25 Apr 1596, St. Michael’s Church, Hernhill, Kent, England, bur. 12 Nov 1630, Ss. Peter and Paul’s Church, Boughton under Blean, Kent, England (Age ~ 34 years) (Mother) Notes - (Research):Who was Hercules the American planter?
A Hercules Hills who seems to have lived in Rochester by 1652 until his death in 1678/9 sold land in Scituate, America in 1660/1.
I say 'seems to have lived' because we know he had children baptised in Rochester in 1652 and 1653, and was in Rochester when there was a poll tax in 1660 but it is possible he was in Scituate between these years. The fact he sold the land in 1660/1 means it unlikely he was there later than 1660.
In a history of Scituate a Hercules Hills is also listed as signing an oath in Scituate (between 1633-1668) and is said to have been there in 1636 (possibly his signature is dated), and to have fought in a war in 1637 (source unknown).
It seems most likely that the Hercules in Scituate in the 1630s and the Hercules who sold land there are one and the same, though it is possible that two Hercules were involved. (The arguments that follow assume it was just one Hercules).
Hercules was a rare Christian name, but used a number of times in one Hill(e)s family, found in Boughton under Blean in Kent and nearby.
It seems almost certain that the Hercules who went to America was from this family, due both to the rareness of the name outside of this family (none known of!), the clear protestant leanings of others in this family and the fact that some Tilsons from Boughton under Blean also seem to have emigrated around the same time. These certainly included Edmund and Joane, Edmund's mother being Mary Hills, and possibly also Edmund's brother Augustine and his family as they too seem to disappear from English records.
The Hills of Boughton under Blean used several unusual Christian names, besides Hercules they also favoured the names Augustine and Gabriel. Whilst unusual names can be useful in linking people to a given family, they can continue to be used for a number of centuries, so it is unsafe to assume any close link.
The earliest Gabriel known of married in 1588 in Hernhill, a neighbouring parish to Boughton under Blean. It is unlikely to be chance, but whilst he could have been a brother of the Hercules, who was having children by 1580 in Boughton, there is no overlap in the names they gave their sons. That Hercules of Boughton named and left small bequests to siblings William, Michael and Susan in his will, but does not mention a Gabriel, although the aforementioned Gabriel was still living. Perhaps they didn't get on, or he was left nothing for some other reason (e.g. he might have given Gabriel some money to help him and felt it would have been inappropriate to give him more, unfair to his other siblings). More likely he was not a sibling but a cousin of some sort. Gabriel could have been used in the Hilles family for some generations before the wills and PR entries that inform us of those mentioned here. By contrast the name Augustine (including its shortened form, Austin) seems to have entered the family from the said Hercules having married Joan Murton, the daughter of Augustine Murton. It is not used by any other Hilles families in the area but it seems that two of Joan Hills née Murton's three sons who had children, as well as his daughter, gave the name to a son. The name Hercules (or Archilaus, as it was sometimes recorded*) seems more like Augustine than Gabriel, in that it does not seem to have been used in any other branches of the Hilles family than that of the Hercules who died in 1595 and his descendants. All the Hercules / Archilaus Hills in Kent to at least the mid-C17th can be placed as descendants of that Hercules.
This means it seems reasonably safe to assume that the Hercules who went to America was his descendant.
Since the oldest known Hercules died in 1595 clearly he didn't go to America. So who was it?
His son Hercules?
A book published in 1831 (online here) shows the son of the above, the Hercules bap in 1590, as the one who went to America. Was he?
He was of an age he could have gone. However, the PRs for Boughton show he had children baptised 1615 to 1638 so can't have been in American in 1636, unless it was for a very brief trip. Perhaps he went thinking of sending for his family, but decided to return to live in England. However, he could not have been the Hercules living in Rochester in the 1660s as he died in Boughton in 1658; his will and the children and wife named in it show it was him.
I said it seems reasonably safe to assume that the Hercules who went to America was a descendant of the Hercules who died in 1595 as all seemed to descend from him, but of course we can't be sure there weren't others. Kent has a good survival of PRs, and where they don't survive in East Kent there were 2 sets of transcripts, starting in the C16th, so it is rare for none to survive. Transcribed data from most of the PRs is indexed with images online, mostly several times over so if one is mis-transcribed there is a good chance another will be accurate. Many of the BTs / ATs are also indexed on FamilySearch, but the coverage is not so comprehensive, so there are a few parishes where the PRs don't survive or have gaps that aren't online. It is just possible that there was another Hercules in one of these.
Hence it could be argued that the Hercules who went to America was the one baptised in 1590, and another moved into Boughton. Whilst possible is is unlikely. Not only would it be a bit of a coincidence, but the Hercules who had a family in Boughton named a son Augustine. If he was the Hercules son of Hercules and Joan née Murton it is not surprising; it was the name of a brother and a grandfather. Not so rare a name as Hercules and Gabriel, another Hercules could have chosen to use the name, but what is the chance he should be of such a similar age, to move in while the other moved out and to have given a generally rare Christian name that the Hercules he was displacing might have been expected to use? Where not linked, coincidences multiply. With several not very likely events at the same time we've now got a very unlikely event. This becomes even more so when looking at the number of family names used for Hercules other children. Whilst most are quite common names, the chance of such a good match is slim: the first son William, like a brother, first daughter, Anne admittedly no obvious link (maybe after an in-law), but the next 3 daughters were the names of his two sisters and his mother.
If there was another, yet to be discovered, Hercules of a similar age to the one baptised in 1590 then it is more likely he who went to America, not he who moved into Boughton while the one from Boughton went to America. However, most likely it was a descendant of Hercules bap 1590.
So, Hercules was almost certainly from a younger generation ... but which?
As I have said, all the Hercules I have come across seem to descend from Hercules who died in 1595. All of his great grandsons would have been too young. That includes those known and, if there are any unknown to me then, based on the age of his grandchildren, any unknown as well. That just leaves his grandsons. Three sons had children and all named a son after their father. Thus there were 3 grandsons called Hercules or Archilaus, baptised in 1621, 1625 and 1628. Considering them in turn in reverse order of birth:
Hercules, son of Augustine, bap 1628?
The last born was the son of Augustine who had moved to St. Lawrence in Thanet (now part of Ramsgate). He is not only mentioned in his father's will, so clearly living then (1651) but married in 1657/8, being described as of St. Lawrence in the PR entry. However, he appears not to have stayed in St. Lawrence, and as his wife was Sarah would seem to be the Hercules who then had children in Chartham. These events rule him out from being the Hercules who was in Rochester having children in the early 1650s and was there in 1660 etc. He was also clearly too young to have been in America in the 1630s.
Hercules, son of Hercules, bap 1625?
Hercules baptised 1625 is shown by Alumni Cantabrigienses to have been educated at Cambridge (which names his father as Hercules, and describes him as 'of Bolton' - phonetically similar to Boughton, and as it also gives the names of schools in Faversham and Ashford is consistent with him being 'of Boughton', or a misreading at some stage of 'Bocton', an alternative spelling for Boughton in the past). This Hercules is not mentioned in his father's will, written 1658, so had probably died by then. His University education means he was almost certainly the 'Mr. Hercules Hill' who was made minister of Boughton under Blean in 1650. Another minister was appointed in 1655, suggesting he may have died by then, probably by Nov. 1653 when a gap in the burial register ends, as there is no record of his burial in the PRs.
His father was a carpenter so this Hercules could have known a bit about that trade, and if he did survive to 1660 and his non-conformist views prevented him becoming an Anglican clergyman could possibly have turned to carpentry to earn a living, though when at school in Ashford at least he is likely to have been boarding, and so his skills may have been limited. However, it is not just his probable death that rules him out as the Hercules who went to America. He was too young to have been there in the 1630s, and there would have been little time between University and his being appointed minister in Boughton. Most conclusively, he would have been in Boughton when the children of the Hercules who went to America were being baptised in Rochester!
I believe we can rule him out.
Archilaus, son of William, bap 1621?
That only leaves 'Archilaus', son of William, baptised in 1621. His name might seem to be against him as the use of Archilaus rather than Hercules does seem to have been deliberate: it was used in the baptism register, at a time when and in a hand which recorded other events involving a Hercules Hills and none was recorded as Archilaus. In addition, his father's will refers to both his son Archilaus and his brother Hercules. However it seems inconceivable that William should have chosen this name for his son without it being chosen as a form of Hercules, with both such rare names. Archilaus Hills would only have been aged 9 when his parents died, his mother first in Nov. 1630 followed by his father some 4 months later. With his parents dead did Archilaus get referred to simply as Hercules like the others in the family? It is quite likely that they would have dropped their 'H's in any case**, meaning that the pronunciation of the names would have been similar if not identical. A Hercules Hills baptised in 1674, the son of a cousin of Archilaus, was buried with his name registered as Arkeles in St. Lawrence in Thanet, somewhere between Hercules and Archilaus, and even in Boughton the uncle of Archilaus who was Hercules in nearly all records was recorded as Archelus in the burial register, both events seeming to confirm the 'H' was, at least on occasions, dropped.
If the name is not an obstacle is there anything else for or against Archilaus being the Hercules who once lived in Scituate? I believe there are a couple of other things that favour him. One is his occupation. His uncle Hercules was, as has been noted, a carpenter. After being orphaned he could well have been taken in by this uncle and by him taught the trade. The other is that I can find nothing else about him. If he wasn't the Hercules of Scituate and Rochester, then what became of him?
I have noticed that in 2018 an article was published entitled "The Kentish Family of Hercules Hills and his Cousin Edmund Tilson, Immigrants to Plymouth Colony" by Clifford L. Stott (The American Genealogist, 90 (2018): 1– 15.). I have now seen this (I hadn't when I wrote the above). It shows the Hercules baptised in 1625 i.e. the son of Hercules as Hercules of Rochester. However, it has no good information, nothing that I had missed, for the decision that it was the one baptised in 1625. This seems to be based on an (unstated) assumption that the names Archilaus and Hercules were separate names and never confused.
The Hercules baptised in 1590 left a will written on 13 Jul 1658 (proved 21 Feb 1658/9). From the relations named in the will there is no doubting whose will it was. At thie time wills were very often (probably most often) written just a few days before a person's death. It seems to me safe to assume that that Hercules was the one buried on 19 Jul 1658, recorded in the register as "Archelus Hills Houshoulder". Added to this, although the will confirms that Hercules was still of Boughton, there is no burial to be found there (or in surviving registers elsewhere) that could be his, and in Boughton the register seems well kept at this time, with no apparent gaps. However, Stott assigns the burial to Hercules' nephew Archilaus.He ignores the fact it shows him as a 'housholder'. If Archilaus were not the Hercules of Scituate and Rochester then he would seem to have been unmarried, and so would probably not have been a householder.
However, it does not look like a trustworthy source. For example, it ascribes the wrong death to Joan, wife of the eldest Hercules (died 1595), despite the ready availability online of both wills showing her further marriages and an index to them which any thorough research would have explored (and which has presumably has been used for a number of will cited), and there are other similar errors made through the lack of sufficient research, even when the evidence is in the same PRs that were clearly used.
Footnotes
* A quick Google shows a number of examples of people who were recorded with both names Hercules and Archilaus; it looks like it was not an unusual thing. In addition the Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names (3rd end, 1977) mentions a possible confusion with Archelaus in the entry for Hercules, and under 'Archelaus' simply says 'see Hercules' rather than having a separate entry.
** This Wikipedia article on H-dropping confirms it occurred in Kent and started well before the late C16th / early C17th centuries.
Person ID I29657 All Last Modified 13 Mar 2021
Father William HILLS, bap. 30 Jul 1592, Ss. Peter and Paul’s Church, Boughton under Blean, Kent, England , d. Between 7 Mar 1630/31 and 11 Mar 1630/31 (Age ~ 38 years) Mother Marie LEDGER, bap. 25 Apr 1596, St. Michael’s Church, Hernhill, Kent, England , bur. 12 Nov 1630, Ss. Peter and Paul’s Church, Boughton under Blean, Kent, England (Age ~ 34 years) Married 8 Jun 1618 St. Michael’s Church, Hernhill, Kent, England - From PR entry (image on FMP, viewed 29 Sep 2020)
"William Hills and Marie Ledger were married the viiith Day of June - 1618"
Family ID F11416 Family Group Page | Family Chart
Family Elizabeth DRAY, d. Aft 1678 Children2 children Last Modified 29 Sep 2020 Family ID F1355 Family Group Page | Family Chart