St. Tysilio's Bryneglwys

The Yale family of Plas yn Ial (between Bryneglwys and Llandegla) were forebears of Elihu Yale, the benefactor of Yale University. Elihu Yale's father was taken to America by his stepfather seventeen years after the first settlers sailed in the Mayflower to avoid discrimination against the puritans during Charles I's reign. The family returned to Britain in 1651 when Elihu was three years old. In about 1670 he went to Madras with the East India Company as a 'writer' at £10 a year. By the time he returned, twenty seven years later, he had amassed a fortune. In 1718 Rev. Cotton Mather of Boston wrote to him promoting the needs of Connecticut College, New Haven and suggested that a financial contribution might result in a change of the name to Yale College. Elihu's bequest to the college was worth £1,162, the largest donation made to the college in its first 122 years. He died in 1721 and was buried at Wrexham parish church.