HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — As America prepares to celebrate 250 years of independence, one of Tampa Bay's most visible connections to the Revolutionary era isn't a Founding Father, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, or a Patriot hero.
It's the name Hillsborough.
You'll find it on our county, our river and our bay.
And behind that name is Wills Hill, the 1st Earl of Hillsborough. Ironically, he was a British aristocrat who historians say represented many of the very ideas Americans fought to reject.
"The Earl of Hillsborough, Wills Hill, really kind of almost embodied what we were revolting against," said Rodney Kite-Powell, director of the Touchton Map Library at the Tampa Bay History Center.
Who was Lord Hillsborough?
An Anglo-Irish aristocrat, Wills Hill served as Britain's first Secretary of State for the Colonies, making him the government's chief liaison with North America during the years leading up to the American Revolution.
At first, some colonists hoped Hillsborough might sympathize with their concerns. Instead, historians say he became one of the strongest defenders of British authority.
"He fundamentally thinks that the British Parliament is the supreme parliament for all of the British Empire," said Dr. Jon Chandler, a historian at University College London who researches the Revolution from the British perspective. "He thinks that the Americans should be subordinate to Britain, so he sees any kind of talk in the colonies of taxing themselves or self-government essentially as treason."
Chandler says Hillsborough showed little sympathy toward colonial grievances and even ordered British troops into Boston following unrest there, a decision that helped escalate tensions in the years before the Revolution.
"To be honest, I don't think anyone really likes him," Chandler said.
If that wasn't enough, George Washington didn't think much of him either.
He once blasted one of Hillsborough's decisions as being "founded equally in Malice, absurdity, & error," accusing the British official of blocking western expansion and acting against the interests of the colonies.
Benjamin Franklin considered him a political foe
If anyone understood Lord Hillsborough's reputation, it was Benjamin Franklin.
Years before he became one of America's Founding Fathers, Franklin traveled to Hillsborough Castle in Northern Ireland in 1771 after receiving a personal invitation from the earl.
The visit was unexpectedly cordial. Hillsborough welcomed Franklin warmly, entertained him lavishly, and spent days discussing colonial affairs. Franklin left believing the relationship between the two men might be improving.
But once both returned to London, everything changed.
Franklin repeatedly tried to visit Hillsborough and was turned away each time. Frustrated, he later concluded that the British official "threw me away as an orange that would yield no juice."
Rodney Kite-Powell believes the experience proved profound.
"Franklin went to go see Wills Hill. He went to Hillsborough Castle," he said. "And it was that poor interaction that kind of turned Franklin's mind from, 'Wow, I think we can work with these people' to 'I don't think we can work with these people.'"
So why is his name all over Tampa Bay?
The answer has less to do with admiration than geography and timing.
Britain acquired Florida from Spain in 1763 following the Seven Years' War. As officials surveyed and mapped their new territory, it was common to honor prominent government leaders by naming places after them.
"You have a lot of map-makers, who during the 1760s, named tons of things for Hillsborough, and that's what happened here," Kite-Powell said.
On Jan. 25, 1834, Florida's Territorial Legislative Council created Hillsborough County, naming it after Wills Hill, the Earl of Hillsborough. Decades prior, his name had already been attached to Hillsborough Bay and the Hillsborough River, making it a familiar fixture on maps of the region.
Dr. Chandler says the original naming likely wasn't ideological at all.
"If you're someone who's thinking about your own career, no one's going to be too upset if you name a river after him," he said.
A surprising legacy
Today, few people know the story.
When Tampa Bay 28 asked people who they thought Hillsborough County was named after, answers ranged from a military general to a pirate. One person even looked at a portrait of Wills Hill and guessed George Washington.
Kite-Powell says the irony is hard to ignore.
"It's funny. At that time when there's still this revolutionary spirit and you have kind of the sons of the American Revolution...they went ahead and named the county after him,” he said.
Still, he doesn't see the name as controversial.
"Because our American history is a British-founded story, as much as we were the enemy at that time during the Revolution, I think there's still this great tie to the British," he said. "I think Hillsborough is a perfectly fine name for the bay, the river and the county."
America may have won the war, but a little-known British aristocrat won some of the naming rights.
Share Your Story with Chad
Chad Mills calls Polk County home and has witnessed the area’s growth firsthand. He is focused on sharing stories from his neighbors in Lakeland. You can use the form below to connect with Chad.
.
Florida brain tumor patient denied insurance coverage for surgery gets full reversal
A West Palm Beach man battling an aggressive brain tumor was denied insurance coverage for the surgery he needed to remove it, only to see his insurer reverse course in a dramatic turn that unfolded inside his hospital room while our investigative team was there interviewing him about the denial.
