Wel-Whe: Weld through Wheeler

See below for annotated biographies of American abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. Source: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography.


WELD, Angelina Grimké, 1805-1879, reformer, author, wife of Theodore Weld  See GRIMKÉ, Angelina Emily/ GRIMKÉ, Sarah Moore.

(Barnes, 1933; Drake, 1950, p. 158; Thomas, 1950; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 425; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936)


WELD, Theodore Dwight, 1803-1895, Cincinnati, Ohio, New York, NY, reformer, abolitionist leader, anti-slavery lobbyist.  Co-founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS) in December 1833.  Manager, 1833-1835, and Corresponding Secretary, 1839-1840, of the Society.  Published American Slavery, As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses (1839).  Also wrote The Bible Against Slavery (1839) and Slavery and the Internal Slave Trace in the United States (London, 1841).  Married to abolitionist Angelina Grimké. 

(Barnes, 1933; Drake, 1950, pp. 138, 140, 158, 173; Dumond, 1961, pp. 161, 176, 180, 183, 185, 220, 240-241; Filler, 1960, pp. 32, 56, 67, 72, 102, 148, 156, 164, 172, 176, 206; Hammond, 2011, pp. 268, 273; Mabee, 1970, pp. 17, 33, 34, 38, 92, 93, 104, 146, 151, 152, 153, 187, 188, 191, 196, 348, 358; Pease, 1965, pp. 94-102; Rodriguez, 2007, pp. 42, 46, 106, 321-323, 419, 486, 510-512; Sorin, 1971, pp. 42-43, 53, 60, 64, 67, 70n; Thomas, 1950; Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 425; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 625-627; American Reformers: An H.W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary, New York, 1985, pp. 681-682; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 22, p. 928; The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volume II. New York: James T. White, 1892, p. 318). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 625-627:

WELD, THEODORE DWIGHT (November 23, 1803-February 3, 1895), abolitionist, was born in Hampton, Connecticut, the son of Elizabeth (Clark) Weld and the Reverend Ludovicus Weld, a Congregational minister. He was descended from a line of New England clergymen whose progenitor was the Reverend Thomas Weld [q.v.], first minister of Roxbury; his ancestry also included Edwardses, Dwights, and Hutchinsons. In Weld's childhood his family moved to western New York, near Utica, where he passed an active, vigorous youth. Here he met Captain Charles Stuart [q.v.], principal of the Utica Academy, a retired British officer, who was to influence profoundly his character and his career. In 1825, when Charles G. Finney [q.v.], the Presbyterian revivalist, invaded Utica, Weld and Stuart joined his "holy band" of evangelists, and for two years they preached throughout western New York. Weld labored chiefly among young men; and when he entered Oneida Institute, Whitesboro, New York, to prepare for the ministry, scores of them also enrolled. Here he remained for several terms, his expenses being borne by Charles Stuart, who had long considered him "beloved brother, and son, and friend." During vacations Weld labored for the cause of temperance with such effect that by the end of the decade he was accounted the most powerful temperance advocate in the West. Meantime he had met those philanthropists of New York City; led by Arthur and Lewis Tappan [qq.v.], who were financing Finney's revival. Attracted by Weld's talents, they repeatedly urged him to head various reforms which they were backing; but he steadfastly refused to abandon his preparation for the ministry.

In 1829 Charles Stuart went to England to preach the abolition of West Indian slavery. He soon became noted as a lecturer for the British Anti-Slavery Society, and even more as a pamphleteer; but his most eloquent appeals were addressed to Weld. His persuasions were successful. From 1830 on, Weld was consumed with anti-slavery zeal. His first converts to emancipation were the New York philanthropists. In June 1831 the Tappans called a council in New York City, which propose d the immediate organization of an American anti-slavery society on the British model. After Weld's departure, however, the Tappans decided to postpone organization until emancipation in the British W est Indies, which was now assured, had become a published triumph. Previously, Weld h ad urged the New York philanthropists to found a theological seminary in the West to prepare Finney's converts for the ministry. In the fall of 1831 they acceded, and commissioned Weld to find a site for the seminary. On this journey he advocated the anti-slavery cause at every opportunity. In Huntsville, Ala., in 1831, he converted James G. Birney [q.v.], and at Hudson, Ohio, he abolitionized the faculty of Western Reserve College, Elizur Wright, Beriah Green [qq.v.], and the president, Charles Backus Storrs. For the seminary he selected a project already begun, Lane Seminary at Cincinnati, Ohio. The Tappans secured Lyman Beecher [q.v.], most famous preacher of his time, as president, and a notable faculty. Weld supplied the bulk of the students from the converts of Finney's revivals. Among them he organized in 1834 a "debate" on slavery (Barnes, post, p. 65), which won not only the students, but also Beecher's children, Harriet and Henry Ward, and several Cincinnatians, among them Gamaliel Bailey [q.v.].

Meanwhile, the New York philanthropists had organized the American Anti-Slavery Society. Unfortunately they adopted the British motto of "immediate emancipation"; and though they defined the motto as "immediate emancipation, gradually accomplished," the public interpreted it as a program of immediate freedom for the slaves. The pamphlet propaganda based upon this motto failed disastrously both North and South, and the society's agents, almost without exception, were silenced by mobs. Weld saved the movement from disaster. Forced out of Lane Seminary by its angry trustees in the fall of 1834, he trained the ablest of his fellow students and sent them out as agents for the American Anti-Slavery Society. Adopting Finney's methods, they preached emancipation as a revival in benevolence, with a fervor which mobs could not silence. Among them, Henry B. Stanton [q.v.] and James Thome became well known; but thirty- two other "Lane rebels" did their parts in establishing the movement in Ohio, western Pennsylvania and New York, Rhode Island and western Massachusetts. Weld, "eloquent as an angel and powerful as thunder," accomplished more than all the rest combined. Indeed, the anti-slavery areas in the West and the field of Weld's labors largely coincide. Among his converts, Joshua R. Giddings, Edwin M. Stanton [qq.v.], and others were later prominent in politics; while the anti-slavery sentiment among New-School Presbyterians was largely due to his agitation among the ministers.

By 1836 the success of Weld's agents was so apparent that the American Anti-Slavery Society decided to abandon the pamphlet campaign, and devo te all its resources toward enlarging his heroic band. Weld himself selected the new agents, to the number of seventy, gathered them in New York, and for weeks gave them a Pentecostal training in abolitionism. One of the new agents at this conference was Angelina Grimke [q.v.], daughter of a prominent South Carolina family, whom Weld specially trained in the months that followed. During the next few years the "Seventy" consolidated the anti-slavery movement throughout the North. After the agents' conference, Weld, whose voice was permanently injured, continued to work for the cause. He took over th e society's publicity, and initiated a new and successful pamphlet campaign among the converts of the "Seventy," in which the most widely distributed tracts, though publish ed anonymously or under the signatures of other authors, were all from his pen. In addition he directed the national campaign for getting anti-slavery petitions to Congress. On May 14, 1838, he married Angelina Grimke, by whom he had three children.

The last phase of Weld's agency was the most significant of all. Certain of his converts in the House of Representatives, having determined to break with the Whig party on the slavery issue, summoned Weld to Washington to act as their adviser. H ere he helped secure the adherence of John Quincy Adams; and when Adams opened their campaign against slavery in the House, Weld served as his assistant in the trial for censure which followed (C. F. Adams, ed., Memoirs of  John Quincy Adams, volume XI, 1876, pp. 75-79). For two crucial sessions, 1841-43, he directed the insurgents; and then, an antislavery bloc within their party being well established, he withdrew from public life. His influence, however, remained paramount. His lobby at Washington was continued by Lewis Tappan; and its organ, the National Era, was edited by Weld's convert, Gamaliel Bailey. In its columns was first published Uncle Tom's Cabin, which, as Harriet Beecher Stowe herself declared, was crystallized out of Weld's most famous tract, American Slavery, As It Is (Barnes, p. 231). Moreover, as the movement spread westward, in almost every district it centered about some convert of Weld or his disciples.

Measured by his influence, Weld was not only the greatest of the abolitionists; he was also one of the greatest figures of his time. His anonymity in history was partly due to his almost morbid modesty. He accepted no office, attended no conventions, published nothing under his own name, and would permit neither his speeches nor his letters to be printed. His achievements as evangelist for W es tern abolitionism were not recorded in the press, largely because he would not speak in the towns, where Eastern papers then had correspondents. Convinced that the towns were subject to the opinion of their countryside, and that "the springs to touch, in order to win them, lie in the country" (Weld-Grimke Letters, post, I, 287), Weld and his agents spoke only in the villages and the country districts of the West, away from public notice and the press. After the Civil War, Weld took no part in the controversies among the abolitionists as to their precedence in history, and he refused to let friends write of his own achievements. He survived all of his fellow laborers, dying at the age of ninety-one at Hyde Park, Massachusetts, where he had made his home for thirty-two years.

Weld's chief works are: The Bible Against Slavery (1 ed., 1837); "Wythe," The Power of Congress over Slavery in the District of Columbia (I ed., 1836); J. A. Thome and J. H. Kimball, Emancipation in the West Indies (1 ed., 1837); American Slavery, As It Is (1 ed., 1839). With J. A. Thome he prepared Slavery and the Internal Slave Trade in the United States, published by the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in 1841.

[This account of Weld's life was pieced together from newspapers, letters and pamphlets of the time. It 1s more fully presented in G. H. Barnes, The Antislavery Impulse, 1830-1844 (1933); and G. H. Barnes and D. L. Dumond, eds., Letters of Theodore Dwight Weld, Angelina Grimke Weld, and Sarah Grimke, 1822- 1844 (2 volumes, 1934). See also C. H. Birney, The Grimke Sisters, Sarah and Angelina Grimke (1885); obituary in Boston Evening Transcript, February 4, 1895.]

G.H.B.


WELLES, Gideon, 1802-1878, newspaper editor.  Secretary of the Navy, Lincoln’s cabinet.  Opposed the extension of slavery.  He left the Democratic party on the slavery question, and helped organize the Republican party when the Democrats supported the Kansas-Nebraska bill. In 1856 he helped establish the Republican organ, the Hartford Evening Press.  Allowed African American refugees to join the U.S. Navy.  Secretary of the Navy 1861-1869. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 427 MS. diaries, letters, and articles in Library of Congress; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 629-632).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 625-627:

WELLES, GIDEON (July 1, 1802-February 11, 1878), secretary of the navy, son of Samuel and Ann (Hale) Welles, was born in Glastenbury (now Glastonbury), Connecticut, on land bought from the Indians by his ancestor, Thomas Welles, governor and first treasurer of Connecticut, who had settled in Hartford in 1636. He attended, 1819-21, the Episcopal Academy at Cheshire, Connecticut, and, 1823-25, the American Literary, Scientific, and Military Academy at Norwich, Vermont (now Norwich University). From his father he received a comfortable living. He studied law, but by January 1826 had become part owner and editor of the Hartford Times, which, under him, was one of the first papers in New England to declare for Jackson. He resigned the editorship in 1836, but continued to be an important contributor to the Times until he broke with the editor over the slavery question. In 1826 he was elected to the legislature, being its youngest member, and served there from 1827 to 1835. He led fights against imprisonment for debt, property and religious qualifications on voting, religious tests for witnesses in court, and grants of special privilege by the legislature. He disliked banks. He fathered Connecticut's general incorporation law, which became a model for other states. On June 16, 1835, he married Mary Jane Hale of Lewistown, Pennsylvania They had nine children.

A devoted Jeffersonian democrat who believed in freedom for the individual, strict construction, and state rights, Welles helped organize Jacksonian Democracy in Connecticut and was always depended on by Jackson for advice and support. He was elected state comptroller of public accounts in 1835, 1842, and 1843. Jackson appointed him postmaster of Hartford in 1836, and he served until Harrison removed him in 1841. As chief of the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing for the Navy, 1846--49, he made friend ships and acquired experience that were later to prove valuable. He was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Congress in 1834 and for the Senate in 1850. On frequent trips to Washington during thirty-five years and on at least five journeys to the West, Welles made a host of friends among important leaders. He seldom forgot a face, a name, or a personality. He was an uncanny judge of men.

He left the Democratic party on the slavery question, and helped organize the Republican party when the Democrats supported the Kansas-Nebraska bill. In 1856 he helped establish the Republican organ, the Hartford Evening Press, and became one of its chief political writers. He contributed an important series of articles to the New York Evening Post and the National Intelligencer in the exciting ante-bellum days. In 1855 William Cullen Bryant spoke of him as "long a valued correspondent of the Evening Post" whose "newspaper style is much better than that of almost any correspondent we have" (W. C. Bryant to Welles, July 17, 1855). He was an unsuccess ful candidate for the governorship of Connecticut in 1856, Republican national committeeman and member of the national executive committee from 1856 to 1864, and head of Connecticut's delegation to the Chicago convention. Always a moderate, he deprecated extremists of both sections.

Soon after the election of 1860 Lincoln chose him as the New England member of his cabinet (J. G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History, 1890, volume III, 367), but did not offer him the place until March 3, 1861. As secretary of the navy under Lincoln and Johnson, 1861-69, Welles held that office longer than any previous incumbent. More prophetic than others, he foresaw that the war would be long. With similar foresight he told Chase in 1863 that reconciliation would at best require more than a generation (Diary, I, 412). He reorganized his department and created overnight a navy where there was none. What ships there were lay scattered over the world. Many officers joined the Confederate navy. In the Ordnance Bureau only two men remained loyal. Two important navy yards fell into Confederate hands. Welles's administration of the Navy Department was much criticized. Some mistakes he did make. The building of light-draft monitors was a costly blunder that arose from failure to supervise Stimers, whose previous record gave the department excessive confidence in him. The Norfolk navy yard need not have been sacrificed. Welles urged its defense, but the inability of the War Department to send protecting troops, the unwillingness of Lincoln to provoke Virginia into secession, and trust of disloyal subordinates by a loyal though hesitant elderly commandant led to its loss. Welles's orders if carried out would have saved at least the ships and armaments. Welles was accused of slowness and undue deliberation; yet he built an adequate navy from nothing with surprising speed. He was charged with extravagance; yet no other war-time business was conducted so economically. He was criticized for allowing his wife's brother-in-law, George D. Morgan, to collect a handsome commission for purchasing ships; yet the commission was normal, and Morgan drove excellent bargains. Several scandals developed in navy yards, but Welles was the first to investigate and punish offenders. No other department was more free from political favoritism. Doggedly he withstood demands for favors. He refused to yield to the demands of Hale for a navy yard in his district though that senator headed the naval committee (Welles to J. P. Hale, January 12, 1863). "The pretensions and arrogance of Senators become amazing," he exploded (Diary, I, 384). "I will not prostitute my trust to their schemes and selfish personal partisanship," he swore (Ibid., I, 327). He urged a new navy yard at Philadelphia in the face of pressure from his own state to locate it at New London. Welles was convinced that the New York press opposed him because he had offended an influential New Yorker when he refused to buy vessels through his agency (Ibid., II, 259-60). His masterly rebukes of naval officers delinquent in duty made him enemies but improved the efficiency of the service. Neither Wilkes's popularity nor Preble's famous name and powerful connections protected them when Welles decided that the good of the service required their removal. He reproved Porter for discourtesy and Phelps for seeking promotion through political pressure. Yet the same vigorous pen defended any officers who deserved it, and his letters of congratulation and praise made the heart glad.

His supervision of naval warfare was creditable. It is hard to determine how much of the credit belonged to him and how much to Gustavus V. Fox [q.v.] and to naval officers whom Welles trusted. Welles supervised most matters closely, and intelligently followed experiments in guns, in naval tactics, in new types of ship. He often personally wrote instructions for important engagements. He also knew how to choose reliable advisers and to cooperate with them effectively. Several claim credit for the capture of New Orleans, but Welles certainly contributed greatly to that victory. The failure of Samuel F. du Pont [q.v.] at Charleston led to endless disputes and made a bitter enemy of that officer, whom Welles blamed for lack of aggressiveness. "He has a reputation to preserve instead of one to make" (Diary, I, 247).

The greatest disputes arose over new ships. The navy had lagged behind France and Great Britain in adopting ironclads, but Welles sponsored their use. Some criticized him for slowness in developing them, others for using them at all. It is significant that in the face of expert and popular skepticism and ridicule Welles studied plans for ironclads as early as March 1861, had Dahlgren report in June on their development in France and Britain, and requested on July 4 and got from Congress a commission to study ironclads and money to build three, if the report was favorable. He conferred in July with the partner of John Ericsson [q.v.], saw Ericsson's plans in August, and was so impressed that he rushed Bushnell off to Washington to present them to the Naval Board and curtailed his own vacation in order to speak in their behalf. He signed a contract with Ericsson in September 1861, requested $12,000,000 for ironclads on December 2, and finally got the bill for $10,000,000 passed in the Senate by personal intervention. When, therefore, popular clamor for ironclads burst forth after the battle of the Monitor and the Merrimac (Virginia) on March 7, he was already using for them $10,000,000 obtained while they were still ridiculed. In a letter of April 25, 1862, Ericsson gave the lie to the attack of the New York Herald on Welles and testified that he had cooperated admirably in building the Monitor. Welles also developed heavy ordnance, improved steam machinery, and armored cruisers. The much-criticized steam-engine of Benjamin F. Isherwood [q.v.] developed speed not equaled until years later. The exigencies of war made him concentrate on monitors useful against an enemy with no navy. As early as December 1862, however, he warned the naval committees that only fast ironclad cruisers could maintain the position of the Union against other naval powers. After the war, he urged enlargement of inadequate navy yards, their modernization to build, repair, and store ironclads, improvement in the selection of naval cadets, and the establishment of a "steam engineering" department at the Naval Academy. Porter, who disliked him, testified that he had "served his country, ... with fidelity and zeal, if not with conspicuous ability" (D. D. Porter, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War, 1885, p. 66). Lincoln wrote on July 25, 1863, "Your department has been conducted with admirable success." The blockade was successful; and naval attacks were often brilliantly executed. Welles's navy was an important factor in the crushing of the Confederacy.

Welles's contribution to the general policies of the government was as important as his departmental administration. He was a close observer and critic of the activities of the War Department and always distrusted Stanton (Diary, I, 58-69). In many campaigns he cooperated with the army but found it difficult to do so. Seward's interference in the Navy Department at the time of the Sumter expedition and his tendency to meddle and give orders to Welles and his subordinates annoyed Welles. He suspected Seward's motives (Ibid., I, 12, 36, 204-05, et passim). Yet when Seward was attacked by congressional enemies Welles loyally supported him. Welles urged the "closing" of Southern ports instead of  permitting other nations to recognize Confederate belligerency by blockading them. When the blockade was established he favored rigid enforcement. On July 22, 1861, long before the army acted, Welles ordered naval commanders to give protection to runaway slaves. On September 25 he issued orders to enlist them in the service. In 1862 3 he protested vigorously against Chase's deprecation of the currency (Ibid., I, 147, 167- 9, 232, 494). He opposed the admission of West Virginia as unconstitutional. In 1863 he deplored the suspension of habeas corpus, the arrest Vallandigham. and the suppression of the Chicago Times (Ibid.,   I, 321-22, 432-35). He disliked the excessive use of power involved in freeing the slaves but favored this as a necessary war measure (Ibid., I, 144). In 1863 he had seen that emancipation involved not only moral and political but also industrial and social relations and wondered whether immediate, universal emancipation might not be injurious to master and slave alike (Ibid., I, 403). While others changed ground he contended to the end that the war was not fought against states but against rebellious individuals and that states could not secede (Ibid., I, 414). He backed Lincoln's moderate program and when Johnson became president supported his efforts to restore Southern states. He early urged Johnson to oust his enemies from office and use the patronage to support his policies (Ibid., II, 398, 556). He helped force James Harlan, James Speed, and William Dennison [qq.v.] out of the cabinet and warned Johnson against Stanton's duplicity (Ibid., II, 398, 404). He supported the new conservative party movement of 1866. When the Radicals triumphed in 1866 he continued to urge upon them a program of moderation and to defend Southerners against Radical excesses. During the impeachment he gave Johnson vigorous support.

In 1868 he returned to the Democratic fold, in 1872 became a Liberal Republican, and in 1876 not only supported Tilden but also used his still-effective pen to attack the decision of the Electoral Commission. He convincingly maintained that he had stood consistently upon his principles while parties and politicians shifted ground. Between his retirement in 1869 and his death he published articles in the Galaxy (November-December 1871; April-May 1872; December 1872; May 1873; October, November, December 1873; September, October 1876; January-February, October, November, December 1877) which remain important historical documents. One of these was expanded and published as Lincoln and Seward (1874). His painstaking diary is a storehouse of historical data, though in its published form (Diary of Gideon Welles, 3 volumes, 1911) there is no indication of the corrections and revisions made in later years by Welles himself (H. K. Beale, in American Historical Review, April 1925, pp. 547-52).

Welles had a commanding figure; yet his bounteous white whiskers and wig gave him benignity. To the navy and to Lincoln he was ''Father Welles," to Governor Andrew of Massachusetts "that old Mormon deacon." An Episcopalian by faith, he was deeply religious. A New England conscience, a keen sense of duty, and a methodical mind made him a dependable public servant. An unusual memory, interest in people, and capacity for shrewd analysis of character gave him a wide knowledge of politicians; his letters and diary contain remarkable sketches of his contemporaries. Since he was no orator and his editorials were usually unsigned, others gained greater fame, but a vigorous political style and access to leading newspapers gave him far reaching influence. Throughout the stormy days of the war he maintained poise and calmness that often encouraged but in crises irritated his associates. Realism and unusual common sense prevented too great disappointment on his part when men fell short of his standards. His severer qualities were softened by marked human kindness, loyalty to friends, and a love of amusing anecdote. Never brilliant, he was competent and, above all, faithful and honest. Pronouncing him "a very wise, strong man," Dana said : "There was nothing decorative about him; there was no noise in the street when he went along; but he understood his duty, and did it efficiently, continually, and unvaryingly" (C. A. Dana, Recollections of the Civil War, 1898, p. 170).

[MS. diaries, letters, and articles in Library of Congress; obituary by William Faxon in the Hartford Daily Courant, February 12, 1878; C. O. Paullin, "A Half Century of Naval Administration in America, 1861-19II," U. S. Naval Institute Proc., volumes XXXVIII, XXXIX (1912-13); C. B. Boynton, History of the Navy during the Rebellion (1876-78); F. M. Bennett, The Steam Navy of the U.S. (1896); J. P. Baxter, The Introduction of the Ironclad Warship (1933); H.K. Beale, The Critical Year (1930), for Welles's course under Johnson; Albert Welles, History of the Welles Family (1876); J. H. Trumbull, The Memorial History of Hartford County, Connecticut. (2 volumes, 1886); H. R. Stiles, The History of Ancient Wethersfield (1904), II, 776-77.]

H. K. B-e.   


WELLING, James Clarke (July 14, 1825-September 4, 1894), journalist and educator.  He favored the abolition of slavery but questioned the validity of the Emancipation Proclamation, holding that it should be legalized by constitutional amendment.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp.

WELLING, JAMES CLARKE (July 14, 1825-September 4, 1894), journalist and educator, was born in Trenton, New Jersey, the only son of William and Jane (Hill) Welling. He received his elementary education at the Trenton Academy and in 1844 graduated from the College of New Jersey (Princeton). After tutoring in Virginia for two years and reading law, he was made associate principal of the New York Collegiate School in 1848. In 1850 he was married to Genevieve H. Garnett, the daughter of Henry T. Garnett of Westmoreland County, Virginia. She died two years later, leaving a daughter. In 1850 he was appointed literary editor of the Daily National Intelligencer in Washington, D. C. Six years later he became associate editor, with actual control of the paper. His learning, legal training, analytical mind, breadth of culture, forceful pen, and wide acquaintance admirably qualified him for the direction of this journal, which was a leading organ of opinion on the eve of the Civil War and continued as such during most of the conflict itself. His articles on constitutional law in its relation to current difficulties stamped the Intelligencer as a conservative Unionist organ. He supported the Bell-Everett ticket in 1860. His editorials on the Trent affair and the Monroe Doctrine attracted wide attention. He favored the abolition of slavery but questioned the validity of the Emancipation Proclamation, holding that it should be legalized by constitutional amendment. He joined his friend, Edward Bates [q.v.], in declaring trials by military commissions to be irregular, a stand later taken by the Supreme Court. His support of McClellan for the presidency in 1864 proved to be a political blunder for both himself and the Intelligencer. He resigned in 1865, went to Europe, and then served for a time as clerk of the federal court of claims. He became president of St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland, in 1867. After three years at St. John's, he was made professor of rhetoric and English literature at the College of New Jersey.  

He resigned to accept the presidency in 1871 of Columbian College, Washington, D. C., now George Washington University. A close friendship with VI. W. Corcoran, the institution's chief benefactor, developed. Their aim was to broaden the scope of the institution's activities so as to make Washington the national educational center. By congressional act of March 3, 1873, the college was incorporated as Columbian University, arid, in the following year, it was moved from the suburbs to the heart of the city. Its law and medical faculties were enlarged, and scientific and dental schools, as well as a school of graduate studies, were opened. A movement to amalgamate the then defunct University of Chicago with Columbian and to obtain financial support from John D. Rockefeller did not materialize. In addition to his executive duties, he taught the philosophy of history and international law. His interests were multifarious. He was president of the Cosmos Club in Washington in 1880, of the board of trustees of Corcoran Art Gallery from 1881 to his death, of the Washington Philosophical Society in 1884, and the Anthropological Society of Washington in 1891-1892. He was a regent of the Smithsonian Institution from 1884 to his death and chairman of the executive committee during the last eight years of his life. Some of his writings of this period were collected in Addresses, Lectures, and Other Papers, published after his death (1903). In the spring of 1894 he resigned the presidency of Columbian to be effective as of the following October, but he died in Hartford, Connecticut, in September. He was survived by his second wife, Clementine Louise Dixon, to whom he was married in 1882. They had two children.

[George Washington University Records; "Diary of Edward Bates," Annual Report American Historical Association ... I930, volume IV (1933), ed. by H. K. Beale; Evening Star (Washington), November 6, 7, 1871, September 4, 5, 1894; Hartford Daily Courant and New York Times, September 5, 1894; private information.]

L. J. R.


WELLS, James Madison (January 8, 1808- February 28, 1899), governor of Louisiana.  In February 1864 at a special election ordered by Lincoln, he was chosen lieutenant-governor on the ticket with Michael Hahn, whom he succeeded upon the latter's resignation in March 1865. The following November he was elected governor in his own right on the National Democratic ticket. During his administration the legislature conditionally ratified the Thirteenth Amendment but unanimously rejected his recommendation to approve the Fourteenth Amendment. Furthermore, having become converted to negro suffrage, he was so distasteful to a majority that memorials for his impeachment were presented. 

("History of Reconstruction in Louisiana," The Johns Hopkins University Studies, 28 series, no. 1 (1910); Alcee Fortier, History of Louisiana (1904), volume IV; The American Annual Cyclopedia ... 1864-1867 (1865-1868); Appletons Annual Cyclopedia .... 1899 (1900).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, p. 633:

WELLS, JAMES MADISON (January 8, 1808- February 28, 1899), governor of Louisiana, seems to have been the grandson of Samuel Levi Wells, a civil engineer who emigrated to America and settled finally about 1760 in Louisiana. His son of the same name and Mary Elizabeth (Calvit) Wells, said to be the grand-daughter of Frederick, sixth Lord Baltimore, became the parents of eight children. The youngest, James, was born at the plantation home, "New Hope," near Alexandria, Louisiana. An orphan at the age of eight, he was reared by an aunt until he went away to a Jesuit school at Bardstown, Kentucky (St. Joseph's College). He then went to the military school of Alden Partridge [q.v.] at Middletown, Connecticut, and later read law in Cincinnati, part of the time in the office of Charles Hammond [q.v.]. About 1829 he decided to devote himself to planting and returned to his native parish, where he was very successful until the outbreak of the Civil War. On May 13, 1833, he married Mary Ann Scott. They had fourteen children. He was one of the largest landed planters of Rapides Parish and created a magnificent summer home, "Jessamine Hill," a few miles south of Lecompte. Educated in the North, he had formed strong convictions against the right of secession, to which he clung tenaciously in spite of his large slave holdings and the condemnation of relatives and friends. Indeed, during the Civil War he was often obliged to seek refuge in "Bear Wallow," the unattractive name of his huge hunting preserve near "Jessamine Hill." When the Federals surrounded Port Hudson, he sought protection from their gunboats. He claimed heavy losses because of his Union sympathies and was pressing his claims for damages at the time of his death.

In February 1864 at a special election ordered by Lincoln, he was chosen lieutenant-governor on the ticket with Michael Hahn, whom he succeeded upon the latter's resignation in March 1865. The following November he was elected governor in his own right on the National Democratic ticket. During his administration the legislature conditionally ratified the Thirteenth Amendment but unanimously rejected his recommendation to approve the Fourteenth Amendment. Furthermore, having become converted to negro suffrage, he was so distasteful to a majority that memorials for his impeachment were presented. 'When General Philip Sheridan appeared in New Orleans as commander of -the district, there arose between him and the governor a quarrel over politics that culminated in Sheridan's removal of Wells from office on June 3, 1867. He continued to be prominent in state politics, however, and was chairman of the Louisiana returning board during the disputed election of 1876. He was such a target of Democratic attack in that controversy that he retired permanently from political life to the quiet of his plantation home. He was a man of good education with an active mind, impressive appearance, and courtly manners.

[MSS. on Louisiana Families by G. M. G. Stafford, Alexandria, Louisiana; papers in possession of grand-daughter, Miss Emily Weems, Washington, D. C.; J. R. Ficklen, " History of Reconstruction in Louisiana," The Johns Hopkins University Studies, 28 series, no. 1 (1910); Alcee Fortier, History of Louisiana (1904), volume IV; The American Annual Cyclopedia ... 1864-1867 (1865-1868); Appletons Annual Cyclopedia .... 1899 (1900); Daily Picayune and Times-Democrat (New Orleans), March 1, 1899.]

E. L.


WELLS, Robert William (November 29, 1795-September 22, 1864), jurist.  During the Civil War, although owner of a few slaves, he was a stanch Union man and was president of the emancipation convention of 1862 and of the Missouri state Radical emancipation and Union convention of 1863.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, p. 643:

WELLS, ROBERT WILLIAM (November 29, 1795-September 22, 1864), jurist, was born at Winchester, Virginia, the son of Richard Wells. He attended common school in Winchester, and in 1816, upon the recommendation of John George Jackson [q.v.], he became a deputy surveyor and served under William Rector in Missouri for one year. Then he began the study of law under the auspices of Jackson. He studied for perhaps a year under Samuel Finley Vinton [q.v.], at Gallipolis, Ohio. In 1819 he engaged in surveying and in 1820 began the practice of law in St. Charles, the temporary capital of Missouri. He designed the great seal of the state of Missouri, which was adopted on January 11, 1822 (see own letter, King, post, pp. 7-11). He took an official part in the St. Charles Agricultural and Manufacturing Society during. 1822, and in 1822 and 1824 was elected to the general assembly as representative from St. Charles County. From 1826 until 1836 he was attorney-general of Missouri. He married Harriet Amanda Rector on January 20, 1830, in Jefferson City. She died on February 3, 1834, leaving three children. In 1831 and again in 1832 he was defeated for representative in Congress. On June 27, 1836, he was appointed federal district judge of Missouri, and upon the division of the state into two districts in 1857 he became judge of the western district, a position he held until his death. One of his opinions, an opinion that the retroactive feature of the bankrupt law was unconstitutional, at the September 1842 term of court, was widely criticized and widely approved. Throughout his career he interested himself in the question of legal change and legal reform. In spite of the long tradition in England and America, he opposed the institution of "trial by jury" in civil cases on the ground that a judge trained in legal theory and processes is more competent to attain truth and justice than were any twelve jurors. In 1845 he was a member and presiding officer of the convention that wrote a new constitution, which was, however, disapproved by the voters. In 1847 he published a book on law reform, Observations on the Pleadings and Practice of the Courts of Justice of Missouri, and a Radical Change Therein. Recommended, outlining his plans for simplifying pleading, shortening forms of declaring cases, and combining cases in law and equity. In 1849 he appeared before the Senate in behalf of a proposed bill, which was passed that year. His Law of the State of Missouri Regulating Pleading and Practise of the Courts of Justice (1849) contains his notations on this law.

He was also interested in various activities in the state. He served as a member of the first board of curators of the University of Missouri. In the 1840's he was a member of the Democratic central committee. He was president of the Osage River improvement convention of 1843, participated in the organization of the Missouri Historical and Philosophical Society in 1845, and served as one of its vice-presidents for several years thereafter. In 1845 he urged the General Assembly to construct the state's first lunatic asylum. During 1850-55 he was active in the promotion of the plank road and railroad movement. He was a charter member of the Missouri fruit growers' association, organized in 1859, and engaged in farming on a fairly large scale. During the Civil War, although owner of a few slaves, he was a stanch Union man and was president of the emancipation convention of 1862 and of the Missouri state Radical emancipation and Union convention of 1863. He died at Bowling Green, Kentucky, survived by five of his six children and by his second wife, Eliza (Covington) Wells, to whom he had been married in June 1840. He was buried in Jefferson City, Missouri

[R. T. King, "Robert William Wells," Missouri Historical Review, January 1936; W. V. N. Bay, Reminiscences of the Bench and Bar of Missouri (1878); Proceedings and Resolutions in the U.S. Circuit Court on the Death of Hon. Robert W. Wells, U. S. District Judge, Missouri, October 3, 1864 (1864); Missouri Republican (St. Louis), September 23, 1864.)

R.T.K.


WENTWORTH, John (March 5, 1815-October 16, 1888), editor, congressman, mayor of Chicago.  On repeal of the Missouri Compromise he left the Democratic party and joined with those of moderate anti-slavery views who founded the Republican party. He was elected mayor of Chicago in 1857 on a "Republican Fusion" ticket.  In 1860 was re-elected. During the Civil War he aggressively supported the Lincoln administration.

(A. T. Andreas, History of Chicago (3 volumes, 1884); Biographical Sketches of the Leading Men of Chicago (1868); Joseph Kirkland, The Story of Chicago (1892); Encyclopedia of Biographical of Illinois (1892); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 657-659:

WENTWORTH, JOHN (March 5, 1815-October 16, 1888), editor, congressman, mayor of Chicago, was born at Sandwich, New Hampshire, son of Paul and Lydia (Cogswell) Wentworth, grandson of John Wentworth of the Continental Congress and of Colonel Amos Cogs well of the Continental Army. He was descend ed from William Wentworth who was in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1639. John attended public schools and various private academies. He taught school one winter, entered Dartmouth College in 1832, and was graduated in 1836. He then went to Michigan and, finding no place as a school teacher in response to his advertisements in the Detroit Free Press, he walk ed to Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, and still finding no school, walked back to Detroit, sent his trunk to Chicago by the brig Manhattan, took a stage to Michigan City, and walked the lake beach to Chicago, arriving with only thirty dollars. He ate his first meal at the boarding-house of Mrs. Harriet Austin Murphy at Lake and Wells streets on October 25, 1836, and thereafter for forty-nine years, unless ab sent from Chicago, he celebrated his advent into that city by taking dinner with Mrs. Murphy. Within a month he was in editorial charge of the weekly Chicago Democrat, denouncing "wildcat" currency, and entering on activities that resulted in a city charter for Chicago, the election of its first mayor, William B. Ogden [q.v.], and the designation of Wentworth as its first official printer. Within three years, at a cost of $2,800, he owned the Chicago Democrat. In 1840 he started the Daily Democrat and made it for years the leading newspaper of the Northwest. During 1841 he spent some six months in Cambridge, Massachusetts, attending law lectures at Harvard, returned to Chicago, and was soon admitted to the bar.

In 1843, when twenty-eight years of age, he was elected to the House of Representatives of the Twenty-eighth Congress, the youngest member of that body. During his congressional service of 1843-51 and 1853-55 he furthered free homestead legislation, helped to initiate and pass bills for Western railway land grants, a national bonded-warehouse system, harbor construction and improvement, and lighthouse erection, and was the unpaid agent of a number of Mexican War veterans claiming bounties, back pay, and pensions. He was an instigator of the notable National River and Harbor Convention of 1847 in Chicago. An original stockholder of the Chicago & Galena Railroad, he headed its committee which arranged consolidation with the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad. On repeal of the Missouri Compromise he left the Democratic party and joined with those of moderate anti-slavery views who founded the Republican party.

He was elected mayor of Chicago in 1857 on a "Republican Fusion" ticket, and announced he, would take no salary. He introduced the first steam fire engine and the first paid fire department of the city. He served one year, declined another term, but in 1860 was again elected. During the Civil War he aggressively supported the Lincoln administration, and as police commissioner threw protection around Clement L. Vallandigham [q.v.] for an anti-war speech and then replied in a blunt argument hailed as effective; as police commissioner he frustrated a threatened raid aimed at a wholesale release of Confederate prisoners in Camp Douglas. His knowledge of law and politics was in pl ay as a delegate to the 1861 convention to revise the Illinoi s state constitution, while his long-sustained journalistic advocacy of a well-equipped common-school system made suitable his appointment to the state board of education for the terms of 1861-64 and 1868-72. His final term in Congress in 1865-67 saw him on the ways and means committee and among the foremost to urge immediate resumption of specie payments.

Year by year he had acquired lots and land in Chicago and Cook County to an extent that brought him the reputation of holding title to more real estate than any other man in Chicago. A stock farm of about five thousand acres at Summit in Cook County was planned by him as a resource and place of heart's ease for his later years, but this vision was never realized: comment ran that during life "he changed his stopping place as often as he did his shirt"; he had the hotel habit, the noise of the city was melodious to him, and the turmoils of politics and affairs more attractive than fanning. When asked for his rules of life he said: "I get up in the morning when I'm ready, sometimes at six, sometimes at eight, and sometimes I don't get up at all. . . . Eat when you're hungry, drink when you're thirsty, sleep when you're sleepy, and get up when you're ready." He was active in behalf of state and local historical societies, read reminiscent addresses before them, wrote a three-volume Wentworth Genealogy (1878), and grieved over his loss in the Chicago fire of his most cherished manuscripts and papers, including a diary in which nearly every day during many years he had made entries "somewhat in the style of John Quincy Adams." He presented Dartmouth College with $10,000, and served as president of the Dartmouth Alumni Association in 1883. while his discourses at educational institutions were bland and urbane, he was as a stump speaker sarcastic and "blunt as a meat ax" as often as he was argumentative. His quick replies, positive attitudes, and gruff manners had added support from a deep-chested, three-hundred-pound body, a height of six feet six inches, the nickname of "Long John," and a varied anger and drollery. The anecdote was widely told, published, and believed that once when running for mayor he walked out on the courthouse steps and faced a waiting crowd that let out a tumultuous yell of greeting. He gazed in calm scorn at them, not taking his hat off, and then delivered the shortest and most terrifying stump speech ever heard in Illinois : "You damn fools, ... you can either vote for me for mayor or you can go to hell." He had personal warmth and forthright utterance, once telling a Congressional colleague, Abraham Lincoln, he "needed somebody to run him" as Senator William H. Seward in New York was managed by Thurlow Weed, Lincoln replying that only events could make a President. John Wentworth was married in Troy; New York, November 13, 1844, to Roxanna Marie, daughter of Riley Loomis. She was in failing health for many years and died in 1870. Of their five children, only one survived him. His death called forth a remarkable series of commentaries and reminiscences on a figure that had striven with the generations who found Chicago a swamp mudhole and saw it made into an audacious metropolis.

[A. T. Andreas, History of Chicago (3 volumes, 1884); Biographical Sketches of the Leading Men of Chicago (1868); Joseph Kirkland, The Story of Chicago (1892); Encyclopedia of Biographical of Illinois (1892); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); Daily Inter Ocean (Chicago), October 17, 1888; "Scrap Book," Chicago Historical Society; files of Chicago newspapers

C. S.   


WESTON, Anne Warren, Weymouth, Massachusetts, abolitionist leader.  Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS).  Executive Committee, American Anti-Slavery society (AASS), 1843-1864.  Counsellor, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1844-1860.  

(Dumond, 1961, p. 275; Mabee, 1970, p. 222; Rodriguez, 2007, p. 199; Yellin, 1994, pp. 40n, 41, 43n, 45, 56, 57n, 61-62, 64, 173, 176n, 253n, 258, 259, 289, 294)


WESTON, Caroline, abolitionist leader.  Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS). Vice President, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1843-1859.

(Rodriguez, 2007, p. 199; Yellin, 1994, pp. 60, 62, 64n, 65, 172, 176, 253n, 256, 285, 294)


WESTON, Deborah, Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS).

(Yellin, 1994, pp. 40n, 43n, 62, 172, 173, 176, 257-259, 285, 294).  Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 2, pp. 36-37:


WHEATLEY, Phillis (c. 1753-December 5, 1784), poet, was born in Africa.

WHEATLEY, PHILLIS (c. 1753-December S, 1784), poet, was born in Africa. When she was about eight years old she was kidnapped and brought in a slave ship to Boston, where she was purchased by John Wheatley, a prosperous tailor of Boston, to be trained as a personal servant for his wife. Phillis, who had been chosen for her appealing charm and sensitive face in spite of physical delicacy, responded at once to her new surroundings. Encouraged by her owners, she made rapid progress. "Without any assistance from School Education," wrote Wheatley, "and by only what she was taught in the Family, she, in sixteen Months Time from her Arrival, attained the English Language, ... to such a Degree as to read any, the most difficult Parts of the Sacred Writings, to the great Astonishment of all who heard her" (Poems on Various Subjects, post). She also read extensively in Greek mythology, in Greek and Roman history, and in the contemporary English poets. She early became something of a sensation among the Boston intellectuals, and when she translated a tale from Ovid, it was published by her friends.

Her first verses, written when she was about thirteen years old, were entitled "To the University of Cambridge in New England." They were followed by "To the King's Most Excellent Majesty," written in 1768, "On the Death of Reverend Dr. Sewell," 1769, and other occasional poems. In 1770 An Elegiac Poem on the Death of the Celebrated Divine George Whitefield, was published. These are not only remarkable as examples of precocity but, though without originality and revealing the influence of Pope and Gray, are excellent work of their kind. (in 1773 her health was failing rapidly and Nathaniel Wheatley, the son of John, took her to England.) She had already corresponded with Lady Huntingdon, Lord Dartmouth, and others, who now received her cordially. (In addition to her gift for writing she appears to have been an unusual conversationalist and to have had no little personal charm. Her popularity in London was immediate and great. The first bound volume of her poems, published while she was abroad, entitled Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), was dedicated to Lady Huntingdon.) Her visit was cut short by the serious illness of Mrs. Wheatley, who died soon after Phillis' return. Wheatley survived his wife only a short time and their daughter died a little later. By this time Phillis ]lad been freed. In 1778 she was married to John Peters, a free negro. He is said to have been "not only a very remarkable looking man, but a man of talents and information." According to tradition, "he wrote with fluency and propriety, and at one period read law." He was disagreeable in manner, however, and "on account of his improper conduct, Phillis became entirely estranged from the immediate family of her mistress" (Memoir and Poems, post, p. 29). :He was not able to give her the care her delicate health required, and of her three children, two died in early infancy. Phillis herself, after undergoing hardships, died in Boston, alone and in poverty, when little more than thirty years old; her last child was buried with her in an unmarked grave. In 1834 Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley was issued, the memoir being written by Margaretta M. Odell. The Letters of Phillis Wheatley, the Negro-Slave Poet of Boston appeared in 1864.  

[B. H. Gregoire, An Enquiry Concerning the Intellectual and Moral Faculties and Literature of Negroes (1810), translated by D. B. Warden; Jared Sparks, The Writings of George Washington, volume III (1834); R. W. Griswold, The Female Poets of America (1849); C. F. Heartman, Phillis Wheatley: A C1itical Attempt and a Bibliog. of Her Writings (1915); Phillis Wheatley (Phillis Peters): Poems and Letters (1911), ed. by C. F. Heartman, with appreciation by Arthur Schomburg; B. G. Brawley, Early Negro American Writers (1935).]


WHEELER, William Almon (June 30, 1819-June 4, 1887), vice-president of the United States. He was active in politics, at first as a Whig, and after 1855 as a Republican. He was district attorney of Franklin County, 1846-49; assemblyman, 1850-51, serving during his second term as chairman of the ways and means committee; state senator and president pro tem Pore of the Senate, 1858-60; member of Congress, 1861-63;

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 2, pp. 57-58:

WHEELER, WILLIAM ALMON (June 30, 1819-June 4, 1887), vice-president of the United States, was born at Malone, New York, the only son and the second child of Almon and Eliza (Woodworth) Wheeler. He came from early Puritan stock, an ancestor, Thomas Wheeler, having been a resident of Concord, Massachusetts, in r637 and later a founder of Fairfield, Connecticut. Both his grandfathers were Vermont pioneers and soldiers of the Revolution. In 1827 his father, a promising young lawyer, died leaving no estate, and his mother supported herself and her children by boarding students at Franklin Academy. Young Wheeler worked his way through the academy and in 1838 entered the University of Vermont. During the next two years he led a studious and undernourished existence, once living on bread and water for six weeks.

Leaving college because of financial difficulties and an affection of the eyes, he returned to Malone and studied law under the direction of Asa Hascell. He was admitted to the bar in 1845, and on September 17 of that year married Mary King. After six years, during which he seems to have been unusually successful, he retired from active practice to manage a local bank. In 1853 he was appointed trustee for the mortgage holders of the Northern Railway and in that capacity conducted the business of the company until 1866.

Meanwhile he was active in politics, at first as a Whig, and after 1855 as a Republican. He was district attorney of Franklin County, 1846-49; assemblyman, 1850-51, serving during his second term as chairman of the ways and means committee; state senator and president pro tem Pore of the Senate, 1858-60; member of Congress, 1861-63; and president of the state constitutional convention, 1867-68. His honors in state politics came to him probably because he was capable and independent; yet never openly attacked the Republican state machine. In 1869 he again entered Congress and was at once made chairman of the committee on Pacific railroads. Four years later Senator Roscoe Conkling [q.v.], with Grant's tacit approval, intrigued to make him speaker instead of James G. Blaine [q.v.]. Wheeler refused to become a party to the plan, partly because Blaine promised to make him chairman of the committee on appropriations-a promise that was never kept-and partly perhaps because of a morbid obsession that his health. was precarious which afflicted him in his later years. But for the influence of his wife and 'his friends he would have resigned his seat and retired to Malone to die. In 1874 he was appointed on a special committee to investigate a disputed election in Louisiana, which had threatened to result in the collapse of civil government in the state. The so-called " Wheeler adjustment" which he proposed proved satisfactory to both parties. With these exceptions his Congressional career was uneventful. He rarely spoke except when he had immediate charge of a bill on the floor. Then he was forceful, persuasive, and adept in parliamentary tactics. In a period when public morals were low he maintained a reputation for scrupulous honesty. Once he indignantly rejected a gift of railroad stock. When the "salary grab" Act of 1873 became law he converted his excess salary into government bonds and had them canceled so that neither he nor his estate could benefit from the measure. He refused to approve a complimentary appropriation for a post-office building at Malone.

When Wheeler was first suggested for the vice-presidency he was practically unknown. Hayes wrote to his wife in January 1876, "I am ashamed to say, Who is Wheeler!'" (Diary, post, III, 301). His nomination that year was the result of an attempt to secure a harmonious balance of sectional elements in the party. During the campaign he spoke logically, though not eloquently, in favor of civil service reform, honesty in administration, and federal assistance in raising educational standards in the South. As vice-president, he was a good presiding officer of the Senate. He cared little for the office, however.. His wife had died March 3, 1876, and he found his chief diversion in frequent calls on the Hayes family. Hayes thought him "a noble, honest, patriotic man" (Ibid., IV, 50). If he had succeeded to the presidency, Wheeler would probably have made few changes in policy. In 1881 he became an inactive candidate for one of the senatorial seats made vacant by the resignations of Conkling and Thomas C. Platt [q.v.], and the next year declined an appointment to the newly created tariff commission. He had no children. At his death nearly all his estate was bequeathed to missions.

[A. G. Wheeler, The Genealogical and Encyclopedia History of the Wheeler Family in America (1914); F. J. Seaver, Historical Sketches of Franklin County (1918); C. R. Williams, Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, volumes III (1924), IV (1925); W. D. Howells, Sketch of the Life and Character of Rutherford B. Hayes (1876); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); D. S. Alexander, A Political History of the State of New York, volume III (1909); G. F. Hoar, Autobiography of Seventy Years (1903); New York Tribune, June S, 1887.]

E. C. S.



Source: Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.