HENRY H. WILLES
BIOGRAPHY
AS RECORDED IN:
COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF
TOLLAND
AND WINDHAM COUNTIES CONNECTICUT.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PROMINENT AND
REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS AND OF MANY OF THE EARLY SETTLED FAMILIES.
PUBLISHER: J.H.BEERS & CO., CHICAGO;
1903
HENRY H. WILLES, proprietor of Willes
Art Store, No. 1013 Main street, Hartford, is the son of Henry A. and Ann
K. Willes, and was born in Norwich, May 21, 1860. His father was a prominent
dry-goods merchant of that city, and in his later years was engaged in the
wholesale hardware manufacturing
business in Philadelphia. The children were Henry H.; Flora N., wife of
Judge Simmons of Vermont; and Claudius W.
Mr. Willes received his education in
the public schools of Hartford, and the Hartford High School. When seventeen
he taught the district school in Barkhamsted. Later he went to Maryland,
where he taught and studied the classics under his uncle, Rev. Daniel Willes,
a graduate of Yale. He is conversant with the modern languages and speaks
several fluently. Returning to the North, he located in Chicago, where
he was in the wholesale hardware business on La Salle street, but disposing
of this interest to good
advantage, he went to Wisconsin, and after a successful business career
there went to Philadelphia, where he became vice-president and traveling
representative of the Chemical Company, manufacturers of tools and hardware
specialties. For fifteen years, Mr. Willes successfully conducted this
business, when he bought the art business formerly owned by his late uncle,
J.H. Willes, at No. 1013 Main street, Hartford. He imports, wholesales
and retails works of art, pictures, frames, oil paintings, engravings, etchings,
water colors, pastelles and artists materials, and he makes mirrors
and the regilding of frames a specialty. He is the manufacturer of upward
of 12,000 picture frames per year; his business has been established nearly
thirty years, being the oldest art store continuously in the same family
in Hartford. Mr. Willes lives at Vernon Center, where he has resided for
over twenty years, living on the original Willes homestead, formerly belonging
to his grandfather, Horatio Willes, who was one of the most prominent men
in
Norwich, where he was engaged in the wholesale grocery business, and where
for many years he served as selectman, and was a bosom friend of Governor
Buckingham. His namesake, Henry H. Willes, was governor of Virginia.
The Willes family is an old and distinguished
one and is descended from Judge Willes of England. Many of its representatives
have been prominent in medicine, ministry and the law.
On Dec. 23, 1886, Henry H. Willes married
Miss Jeannette Hoadley, of New Haven, a member of one of the leading families
of that section, and a cousin of ex-Governor Hoadley, of Ohio. They have
traveled extensively through Europe and America. One son has blessed the
union, Hoadley H., born May 27,
1892. Mr. Willes has taken a vital interest in matters looking to the improvement
of the town of Vernon. In religion he is a much respected member of the
Congregational Church at Vernon Centre, having been president of the Ecclesiastical
and Christian Endeavor societies. In politics he is a Republican. He was
representative of the town of Vernon, and served as chairman of the committee
on Manufactures; a fluent speaker, he took an active part in the proceedings
of the Legislature in 1901.
Reproduced by:
Linda D. Pingel great-great granddaughter
of Cyrus White of Rockville, Ct.
Duncanville, Texas
Biographies of Tolland County
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