Samuel Welles (1689 - 1770)

Born 24 Dec 1689 in Glastonbury, Hartford, Connecticut

Ancestors

Husband of Abigail (Arnold) Welles — married 15 Sep 1719 in Boston, Massachusetts

Descendants

Died 20 May 1770 at age 80 in Boston, Massachusetts

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Biography

Son of Captain Samuel Welles, Jr. and Ruth Rice. He married Hannah Arnold.

^[1]"Samuel Welles, the third child of Captain Samuel Welles, of Glastenbury, who was the first child of Samuel Welles, of Wethersfield, the fifth child of Governor Thomas Welles, of Hartford, was born in Glastenbury, Conn., Dec, 24th, 1689."

"After a preparatory education, he entered Yale College, and graduated 1707. This college began to confer degrees of Master of Arts in 1702, and the first seven years fell short of seven graduates a year. This is mentioned to show the slow progress of an institution now numbering more annual graduates than any in the land, except Harvard. Mr. Welles's name in the college degrees was designated by V.D.M. After leaving college he studied divinity, and soon received a call to a parish in the town of Lebanon. In this profession and relation he was very acceptable to his people for some years, until he became affianced to Miss Arnold, only child of a distinguished and wealthy merchant of Boston.

The parents of Miss Arnold were unwilling he should marry their daughter unless he abandoned his parish and came to reside with them in Boston, which he was subsequently enabled to do, having obtained from his church a dismissal, to their great sorrow, the Rev. Solomon Williams becoming his successor. To facilitate this object more readily, Mr. Welles sold him his house, still standing near the old Norwich Road, and distinguished by a large pine tree.

Mr. Welles then left for Boston, and was married to Miss Arnold (whose name at first seems to have been Abigail, and subsequently changed to Hannah) on the 15th Sept., 1719. In this lady he found a kind and affectionate wife, and, her parents soon after dying, Mr. Welles succeeded to the possession of an ample landed estate, consisting of large tracts of land in Boston, particularly where Boylston Market now stands, nearly an acre, and several acres with a wharf called Welles Wharf, at the South End, with other valuable estates in Pleasant and Nassau Streets, the Neck, and elsewhere.

The whole charge of this large fortune, after the death of his father-in-law, devolving upon Mr. Welles, he set himself diligently at work to improve it, by building a block of three houses near the present market, he himself residing in the south part of this block. His house is represented as very imposing and expensive for the times, the four large panels in the parlor being painted to represent the four seasons, and on other parts of the room were painted landscapes representing the customs and manners of the country, executed by a Flemish artist of great distinction in those days. So highly esteemed were they that, upon the demolition of the house, they were eagerly purchased, and are still in preservation.

Soon after the removal of Mr. Welles to Boston, he was called to fill various public offices, such as Judge of the Lower Courts, representative of the people, &c. He was for many years one of His Majesty's Council for the then Colony. He was a Whig in principle, and was chosen to meet the Commissioners appointed by the several Colonies, then eleven in number, to devise a union upon a more liberal system. The plan, it would appear, was fraught with a spirit of independence and a dissatisfaction with the mother country somewhat in advance of the times, and it failed of support in 1754.

Mr. Welles was for many years afterwards usefully occupied in the administration of public affairs. In private life he devoted himself to the education of his children, with an attention for which he was well qualified. His eldest son, Samuel, was born 5th March, in the year 1725. His second son, Arnold, was born 25th December, 1727. They were prepared for college at the town school by the elder Lovell, and graduated at Harvard, - the former in 1744, the latter in 1745. His only daughter, Abigail, was born in 1730. She was said to have kept pace with her brothers in the study of the learned languages.

Mr. Welles's visits were frequent to Connecticut, where he still held large tracts of land in Glastenbury, Lebanon, &c., derived from his ancestor the Governor, the first settler, who, it was supposed, came out with Lord Saye and Sele, as an associate and private secretary. His lordship, not finding his golden dreams realized, and being discouraged by the gloomy aspect of things about him, returned to England, leaving his Secretary behind to encounter, single-handed, the dangers and difficulties of the then wilderness. Mr. Samuel Welles's decease is recorded as having taken place May 20th, 1770, aged eighty-three years."

Boston, Mass., 1850.

"After a long life of honor and usefulness, the decease of the Hon. Samuel Welles is recorded as having taken place May 20, 1770. The preceding exhibits a long, useful, and honorable life, in which there was much to recur to with pleasing retrospection by his descendants, as well as much to influence in a good example. The facts have been carefully collected for the family by one who values a good name, and subscribes himself their friend and relative,

John Welles."^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ Clements, H. H.., Sargent, Henry Winthrop., Welles, Albert. History of the Welles Family in England: With Their Derivation in this Country from Governor Thomas Welles, of Connecticut. United States: J. Wilson and Son, 1874. pp. 114-116. https://www.familysearch.org/library/books/viewer/675429
2. ↑ pg 114-116 - History of the Welles family in England and Normandy, with the derivation from their progenitors of some of the descendants in the United States - https://archive.org/stream/historywellesfa00wellgoog#page/n6/mode/2up

• Colonial Collegians: Biographies of Those Who Attended American Colleges before the War for Independence (subscription). CD-ROM. Boston, Mass.: Massachusetts Historical Society : New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2005. (Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2008.) Vol. Yale page 38
• pg 114 - History of the Welles family in England and Normandy, with the derivation from their progenitors of some of the descendants in the United States - https://archive.org/stream/historywellesfa00wellgoog#page/n6/mode/2up
• Dexter, Franklin Bowditch. Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College (Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., 1885) Vol. 1, 1701-1745 With Annals of the College History. Page 71-3