Wee-Wet: Weed through Wetmore

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


WEED, Edward, abolitionist, agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), Ohio Area. 

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 185; Filler, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960, p. 146; Mitchell, Thomas G. Antislavery Politics in Antebellum and Civil War America. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007, pp. 80, 86, 88, 104, 106, 116, 129, 143, 146, 154, 168, 174, 206, 227, 228, 229; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 513)


WEED, Thurlow, 1797-1882, journalist, political leader opponent of slavery.  He shared Seward's humanitarian views but never to the point of endangering the serious business of elections, and while he recognized Horace Greeley's power, he cast a dubious eye on his "isms," especially in the field of social reform. His own anti-slavery sentiments were sincere, but he was more desirous of getting anti-slavery men to accept Whig candidates than of committing the party openly to their cause; for the abolitionists who clamored for a party of their own […].

(Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971, p. 63; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, pp. 419-420; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 598-600; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 22, p. 882). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 598-600:

WEED, THURLOW (November 15, 1797-November 22, 1882), politician and journalist, the eldest son of Joel and Mary (Ellis) Weed, was born in Greene County, New York, where his grandfather, formerly of Stamford, Connecticut, had settled with his family after the Revolution. Joel Weed, a hard-working but never prosperous farmer, sometimes in jail for debt, moved in 1799 to Catskill, where his son enjoyed a brief schooling. When he was eight years old Thurlow began to earn what he could by odd jobs at the blacksmith's, the printer's, and on Hudson River boats. In 1808 the family moved to Cortland County, and not long afterward to Onondaga, where young Weed was apprenticed to a printer. Several years in various printers' shops in central New York, broken by a few months' militia service in 1813, brought him little pecuniary gain but gave him an unrivalled education in local affairs. In 1817 he became foreman on the Albany Register, and tried his hand at writing news paragraphs and editorials in support of DeWitt Clinton's canal policy. On April 26, 1818, he married Catherine Ostrander of Cooperstown.

During the next four years Weed tried to publish Clintonian papers at Norwich and Manlius, and after both had failed he moved on, almost penniless, to Rochester. There he secured a position on the Rochester Telegraph, for which he wrote editorials advocating John Quincy Adams for president. Sent to Albany in 1824 to lobby for a bank charter, he promptly set about uniting the friends of Adams and Clay in a common opposition to William H. Crawford, the candidate of Martin Van Buren. He returned to Rochester with the charter, and also with the knowledge that his time and efforts had become essential to his party (Life, post, I, 107). Soon he was campaigning through the western counties in behalf of Adams for president and Clinton for governor of New York. Weed himself was elected to the Assembly. Fortune favored him in business as well as in politics, and in 1825 he was able to buy the Telegraph.

Throughout the anti-Masonic excitement that followed the disappearance of William Morgan [q.v.] in 1826, Weed was an active member of the local Morgan committee, and gave up the Telegraph to publish the Anti-Masonic Enquirer. As local political organizations were formed, Weed exerted himself to secure candidates who were "sound" on issues other than the Masonic. He held the "infected district" in line for Adams in 1828 and supported National Republicans locally. Leading Anti-Masons raised a fund to establish a paper at Albany, and employed Weed as editor; he was elected to the Assembly in 1829 to make his presence at the capital possible. On March 22, 1830 the first issue of the Albany Evening Journal appeared, Weed being reporter, proof-reader, and often compositor, as well as editor, legislator, and political manager. He remained officially an Anti-Mason through 1832, supporting William Wirt [q.v.], the party's presidential candidate, but, as before, saw that the nominees for state offices were National Republicans. Most Anti-Masons, he was convinced, were in sympathy with Clay's "American system," and were inevitably opposed to the dominant "Albany Regency," so closely linked, through Van Buren, to President Jackson. He himself ignored the Bank issue, believing it inexpedient to oppose so popular a movement against "moneyed aristocracy." Drilling his party through the unsuccessful campaigns of 1834 and 1836, he was ready for the opportunity offered by the panic and hard times, and helped create the victories that made William H. Seward [q.v.] governor in 1838 and Harrison president in 1840.

Weed was now generally regarded as the dictator of his party, and was charged with dominating Seward, to whom he was bound in closest personal friendship. His great influence, however, was exerted in the field of political management. Others formulated the principles and Weed secured the votes. Patronage he regarded as indispensable; he derived "great satisfaction ... in bringing-capable and good men into public service" (Life, post, I, 209), the good men being Whigs. Bribery and legislative favors were in his opinion legitimate party instruments, but he was above taking corrupt profits for himself. His paper was a party organ, providing usable facts and arguments, in terse paragraphs, to gain and hold Whigs to the true faith. He shared Seward's humanitarian views but never to the point of endangering the serious business of elections, and while he recognized Horace Greeley's power, he cast a dubious eye on his "isms," especially in the field of social reform. His own anti-slavery sentiments were sincere, but he was more desirous of getting anti-slavery men to accept Whig candidates than of committing the party openly to their cause; for the abolitionists who clamored for a party of their own he had nothing but scorn.

As the fruits of victory vanished with Tyler's accession to the presidency, followed by Seward's defeat in 1842, Weed lost heart, traveled abroad, and even talked of giving up the Evening Journal. The campaign of 1844 was not only unsuccessful but ominous of dissensions to come. Too astute to oppose the government in wartime, he directed his efforts to the future of the territories to be acquired, and supported the Wilmot Proviso. With equal astuteness, early in 1846 he recognized General Zachary Taylor's possibilities as a candidate for the presidency, and advised him not to commit himself on controversial questions. Taylor's election, with Fillmore as vice-president and Seward as senator, promised to establish Weed's power firmly, but with Taylor's death the outlook was changed. Fillmore accepted the compromise measures of 1850; Seward, backed by Weed, was their great opponent; and the Whig division was hopeless. Need, sure of his party's defeat in 1852, went abroad. Thoroughly anti-Nebraska in sentiment, he was slow to join the new Republican party in 1854 until Seward's reelection to the Senate was assured. He was opposed to Seward's being put forward by the Republicans as a candidate for the presidency in 1856, believing that his chances of election would be better in 1860. His presidential ambitions for Seward were doomed to disappointment, however; and no little of the feeling against Seward in 1860 was due to his long and close connection with Weed, who was highly unacceptable to former Democrats.

Weed was consulted by Lincoln, during the latter's campaign and after, and had considerable influence on appointments, though he was credited with more than he had. In 1861 he went, with Archbishop Hughes and Bishop Mcllvaine [qq.v.], on an unofficial mission to conciliate English and French opinion after the Trent affair. He was willing to accept the Crittenden compromise in 1861, and, distrustful of "ultra abolitionist" influences on Lincoln, would have preferred an untainted and active War Democrat as the Union candidate in 1864, but McClellan's acceptance of the Democratic platform kept Weed in the Republican lines. His influence in New York, badly shaken by Seward's failure in 1860, declined steadily as the Radicals gained strength after Lincoln's death. He had given up the Evening Journal and moved to New York City in 1863, where in 1867 he returned to journalism, becoming editor of the Commercial Advertiser. Failing health and sight soon compelled him to abandon editorial work, however. Retaining his deep interest in public affairs, he was a frequent contributor to the press on political subjects and was often consulted by political leaders. For some time he had been writing a desultory autobiography. In 1866 his Letters from Europe and the West Indies was published. After his death some of his articles on bimetallism were reprinted in The Silver Dollar of the United States and Its Relations to Bimetallism (1889).

He was tall and robust, rather awkward in appearance. His charm of manner, unruffled good-nature, and ready generosity drew into the circle of his friends even those political opponents who had suffered most from his vigorous attacks and rough wit. Seward wrote in early years that he had "had no idea that dictators were such amiable creatures" (Life, II, 63), and young Henry Adams, meeting Weed in London, won by "his faculty of irresistibly conquering confidence . .. followed him about ... much like a little clog." He was, thought Adams, "the model of political management and patient address," "a complete American education in himself" (The Education of Henry Adams, 1918, p. 146). He died of old age in his eighty-sixth year and was survived by three daughters, his wife and a son having died many years before.

[Weed's "Autobiography" was published by his daughter, Harriet A. Weed, as volume I of the Life of Thurlow Weed (1884); volume II is a "Memoir" by his grandson, T. W. Barnes. Other sources are: D. S. Alexander, A Polit. History of the State of New York, volumes I-III (1906-09); S. D. Brummer, Political History of New York State During . .. the Civil War (1911); Frederic Bancroft, The Life of William H. Seward (2 volumes, 1900); F. W. Seward, Autobiography of William H. Seward .. (1877) and Seward at Washington (2 volumes, 1891); F. H. Severance, "Millard Fillmore Papers," volume II, being Buffalo Historical Society Publications, volume XI (1907); Horace Greeley, Recollections of a Busy Life (1868); Gideon Welles, Diary (3 volumes, 19II), and Lincoln and Seward (1874); Atlantic Monthly, September 1883, pp. 411-19; Magazine of American History, January 1888; New York Times, New York Tribune, and Albany Evening Journal, November 22, 23, 1882.]

H. C.B.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI. pp. 419-420:

WEED, Thurlow, journalist, born in Cairo, Greene county, New York, 15 Nov., 1797; died in New York city, 22 November, 1882. At twelve years of age he entered a printing-office in Catskill, New York. Soon afterward he removed with his father's family to the frontier village of Cincinnatus, Cortland county, New York, and aided in clearing the settlement and in farming, but in 1811 returned to the printing business, and was successively employed in several newspaper offices. At the beginning of the second war with Great Britain he enlisted as a private in a New York regiment, and served on the northern frontier. In 1815 he removed to New York city, where he was employed in the printing establishment of Van Winckle and Wiley. They were the publishers at that time of William Cobbett's “Weekly Register,” and Weed became acquainted with the eccentric author by carrying proof-sheets to him. He went to Norwich, Chenango county, New York, in 1819, established the “Agriculturist,” and two years afterward removed to Manlius, New York, where he founded the “Onondaga County Republican.” In 1824 he became owner and editor of the “Rochester Telegraph,” the second daily paper that was published west of Albany. While Mr. Weed was editing that journal Lafayette visited the United States, and Weed accompanied him in a part of his tour throughout the country. Difficulties arising out of the anti-Mason excitement caused Mr. Weed's retirement from the “Telegraph” in 1826, and in the same year he founded the “Anti-Mason Enquirer.” He was a member of the legislature in 1825. In 1830 he established the Albany “Evening Journal,” which took a conspicuous part in the formation of the Whig and the Republican parties, being equally opposed to the Jackson administration and to nullification. During the thirty-five years of his control of that organ it held an influential place in party journalism, and brought Mr. Weed into intimate relations with politicians of all parties. His political career began in 1824 in the presidential conflict that resulted in the election of John Quincy Adams. He succeeded in uniting the Adams and Clay factions, and was acknowledged by the leaders of his party to have contributed more than any other to their success in that canvass. He was active in the nomination of William Henry Harrison in 1836 and 1840, of Henry Clay in 1844, of General Winfield Scott in 1852, and of John C. Frémont in 1856. In 1860 he earnestly advocated the nomination of William H. Seward for the presidency, but he afterward cordially supported Abraham Lincoln, whose re-election he promoted in 1864. He subsequently aided the regular nominations of the Republican party, and did good service in the canvass of General Ulysses S. Grant for the presidency. Especially in his own state he influenced the elections, and in the constitutional crisis that arose from the presidential election in 1876 he guided in a powerful degree the decisions of his party. He had visited Europe several times before the civil war, and in 1861 with Archbishop Hughes and Bishop McIlvaine he was sent abroad to prevail on foreign governments to refrain from intervention in behalf of the Confederacy. In this service he stoutly defended the national interests, and, through his influence with English and French statesmen, brought about a result that permanently affected the feeling of Europe toward the United States. His “Letters” from abroad were collected and published (New York, 1866). He became editor of the New York “Commercial Advertiser” in 1867, but was compelled to resign that office the next year, owing to failing health, and did not again engage in regular work. Mr. Weed was tall, with a large head, overhanging brows, and massive person. He had great natural strength of character, good sense, judgment, and cheerfulness. From his youth he possessed a geniality and tact that drew all to him, and it is said that he never forgot a fact or a face. He was a journalist for fifty-seven years, and, although exercising great influence in legislation and the distribution of executive appointments, he refused to accept any public office. He was one of the earliest advocates of the abolition of imprisonment for debt, was a warm opponent of slavery, supported the policy of constructing and enlarging the state canals, and aided various railway enterprises and the establishment of the state banking system. He took an active part in the promotion of several New York city enterprises—the introduction of the Croton water, the establishment of the Metropolitan police, the Central park, the harbor commission, and the Castle Garden depot and commission for the protection of immigrants. He gave valuable aid to many charitable institutions, and devoted a large part of his income to private charity. He published some interesting “Reminiscences” in the “Atlantic Monthly” (1876), and after his death his “Autobiography,” edited by his daughter, appeared (Boston, 1882), the story of his life being completed in a second volume by his grandson, Thurlow Weed Barnes (1884). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI. pp. 419-420.


WEEKS, Refine, poet, New York, Society of Friends, Quaker, abolitionist.

(Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, p. 127)


WEEKS, William Raymond, 1783-1848, Newark, New Jersey, clergyman, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1834-39. 

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 420)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI. pp. 420:

WEEKS, William Raymond, clergyman, born in Brooklyn, Connecticut, 6 August, 1783; died in Oneida, New York, 27 June, 1848. He was graduated at Princeton in 1809, studied at Andover theological seminary, and was pastor of Presbyterian churches in New York state from 1812 till 1832, when he accepted a charge in Newark, New Jersey, which he held till 1846. Williams gave him the degree of D. D. in 1828. He is the author of “Nine Sermons” (1813), a series of tracts (1834-'41), and a posthumous volume entitled “Pilgrim's Progress in the Nineteenth Century” (1849). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI. pp. 420.


WEEMAN, Ebenezer, Boston, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Executive Committee, 1846.


WEINER, Theodore, radical abolitionist, follower of John Brown (see entry for John Brown).


WEISS, John (June 28, 1818-March 9, 1879), Unitarian minister, author, openly opposed to negro slavery.

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 422; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, p. 615)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 615-616:

WEISS, JOHN (June 28, 1818-March 9, 1879), Unitarian minister, author, was born in Boston, the son of John and Mary (Galloupe) Weiss. His grandfather, also a John Weiss, was a German Jew who had come to the United States as a political refugee and kept a tavern in Germantown, Pennsylvania. His father was a barber. Weiss lived his boyhood in Worcester, Massachusetts, attended the public schools and Framingham Academy, and graduated in 1837 from Harvard College. At college he did not stand high in the esteem of the faculty, and was once rusticated, but his temperament- an explosive compound of wit, poetry, and religious idealism-was relished by his classmates. After teaching for a few years, he enrolled in 1840 at the Harvard Divinity School and attended, 1842-43, the University of Heidelberg. He was pastor of the Unitarian Church, Watertown, Massachusetts, where he succeeded Convers Francis, from October 25, 1843, to October 3, 1845, from March 23, 1846, to December 6, 1847, and from June 1862 to June 1869; in the second interval, he was pastor of the First Congregational Society, New Bedford, December 29, 1847, to January 24, 1859. On April 9, 1844, he married Sarah Fiske Jennison of Worcester, who with three sons and two daughters survived him. Impetuous in his enthusiasm, zealous for liberty-which meant open opposition to negro slavery among other things -unpredictably witty, eloquent, and satirical in his sermons, he dazzled, bewildered, and ultimately exasperated his pewholders at Watertown and New Bedford. Unable to find a congenial parish, he was compelled at various times to live on the insecure returns from writing, lecturing, and occasional preaching. He contributed articles, reviews, and poems to several magazines, especially to the Christian Examiner, the Atlantic Monthly, Old and New, and the Galaxy, and was one of the chief supports of Sidney H. Morse's Radical. His most substantial achievement was his Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker (1863), which began as a short memoir, undertaken at the suggestion of Joseph Lyman, Parker's literary executor, and grew into a solid, two-volume documentary life of enduring worth. In writing it, however, Weiss incurred the displeasure of Mrs. Parker and of Franklin B. Sanborn, who claimed that Parker had appointed him his biographer. Weiss helped to introduce German literature to New England readers with The Asthetic Letters, Essays, and the Philosophical Letters of Schiller, Translated with an Introduction (1845) and Goethe's West Easterly Divan, Translated with Introduction and Notes (1877). His two original books are American Religion (1871) and Wit, Humor, and Shakespeare: Twelve Essays (1876), the fullest exhibitions of his high-minded, intensely subjective, somewhat disjointed thought. His conversation, like his sermons and lectures, was a cascade of wit, epigram, and poetic images. He was greatly admired by several of the leaders of his denomination, whose memoirs depict him as a religious genius. He was one of the founders in 1867 of the Free Religious Association. During the last five or six years of his life he lived in Boston, where he died.

[Henry Williams, Memorials of the Class of I837 of Harvard University (1887); Boston Daily Advertiser, March 10, 1879; Christian Register, March 29, 1 879; J. H. Allen, "A Memory of John Weiss," Unitarian Review, May 1888; C. A. Bartol, "John Weiss," Ibid., April 1879, and "The Genius of Weiss," Principles and Portraits (1880); O. B. Frothingham, "John Weiss," Unitarian Re11., May 1888, reprinted in Recollections and Impressions (1891); Mrs. J. T. Sargent, Sketches and Reminiscences of the Radical Club (1880); Catalog of the Private Library of the Late John Weiss, to be Sold by Auction (Boston, 1879); C. L. F. Gohdes, The Periodicals of Transcendentalism (1931); M. J. Savage, sketch in S. A. Eliot, ed., Heralds of a Liberal Faith, volume III (1910); F. B. Sanborn, Recollections of Seventy Years (1909).]

G. H. G.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 422:

WEISS, John, author, born in Boston, Massachusetts, 28 June, 1818; died there, 9 March, 1879. His father, a German Jew, was a barber in Worcester, Massachusetts. John was graduated at Harvard in 1837, and at the divinity-school in 1843, meanwhile studying abroad. He then was settled over the Unitarian church in Watertown, Massachusetts, but withdrew on account of his anti-slavery opinions, and was pastor at New Bedford a short time, resigning on account of the failure of his health. After several years of study and travel he resumed his pastorate in Watertown, and preached there in 1859-'70. Mr. Weiss was an ardent Abolitionist, an advocate of women's rights, a rationalist in religion, and a disciple of the transcendental philosophy. He delivered courses of lectures on “Greek Religious Ideas.” “Humor in Shakespeare,” and “Shakespeare's Women.” Of his lectures on Greek religious ideas, Octavius B. Frothingham says: “They were the keenest interpretation of the ancient myths, the most profound, luminous, and sympathetic, I have met with.” He is the author of many reviews, sermons, and magazine articles on literary, biographical, social, and political questions, “Life and Correspondence of Theodore Parker” (2 vols., New York, 1864), and “American Religion” (1871). He also edited and translated “Henry of Afterdingen,” a romance by Friedrich Van Hardenberg (Boston, 1842); “Philosophical and Æsthetic Letters and Essays of Schiller,” with an introduction (1845); and “Memoir of Johann G. Fichte,” by William Smith (1846). Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.


WEITZEL, Godfrey (November 1, 1835-March 19, 1884), soldier, engineer, commander of U. S. Colored Troops.  He had much experience in command of colored troops. When first assigned to this duty, in 1862, he vigorously opposed the idea of arming slaves, and accepted the command under strong protests; but he was successful with these troops, and in 1864 and 1865 all the infantry regiments of his XXV Corps were colored. 

(G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates U. S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891), volume II; 15th Annual Reunion, Association Graduates U.S. Military Academy (1884); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 616-617:

WEITZEL, GODFREY (November 1, 1835-March 19, 1884), soldier, engineer, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of Louis and Susan Weitzel, recent arrivals from the Bavarian Palatinate. After preparatory education in the local schools, he entered the United States Military Academy in 1851, graduated July 1, 1855, as second in a class of thirty-four, and was commissioned brevet second lieutenant of engineers. He became second lieutenant July 27, 1856, and first lieutenant, July 1, 1860.

His first duty was on the fortifications of New Orleans, 1855-59. Subsequently, until January 1861, he was assistant professor of engineering at the Military Academy. During this period his wife died as the result of burns sustained when her dress caught fire. Early in 1861 Weitzel was assigned to the engineer company on duty in Washington, and with this company he took part in the expedition to Pensacola, Florida (April 19-September 17, 1861), which saved Fort Pickens to the Union. In the fall of the same year he was chief engineer of the fortifications of Cincinnati, then returned to Washington in command of an engineer company. On account of his familiarity with the defenses of New Orleans, in the spring of 1862 he was made chief engineer of General Butler's force, which cooperated with Admiral Farragut in the operations against that place. After the surrender, April 30, he served as assistant military commandant of the city. Made brigadier-general of volunteers on August 29, 1862, he was thereafter continuously engaged in field operations in Louisiana until December 1863. He commanded a brigade and provisional division in the siege of Port Hudson, and in the assaults of May 27 and June 14, 1863. During this period he became captain in the regular engineer corps, and received the brevets of major and lieutenant-colonel for gallantry at Thibodeaux and Port Hudson.

In May 1864 he assumed command of the Second Division, XVIII Army Corps, in Butler's Army of the James, but was soon detached to become chief engineer of that army. In this capacity he supervised the construction of the defenses of Bermuda Hundred. In August he became brevet major-general of volunteers, and in September returned to troop duty, commanding first the XVIII and later the XXV Army Corps. He received the brevet rank of colonel in the regular service September 29, 1864, for gallantry at the capture of Fort Harrison, Virginia, and on November 17, 1864, was promoted major-general of volunteers. In December he was second in command to Butler in the first expedition again st Fort Fisher, and exercised the active command of the troops sent ashore. During the final operations against Richmond his command occupied the line between the James and the Appomattox rivers, and took possession of the city upon its evacuation, April 3, 1865. For service in this campaign he received the brevets of brigadier-general and major-general in the regular army. General Butler relied greatly upon him, and General Grant spoke of him as a thoroughly competent corps commander (John Russell Young, Around the World with General Grant, 1879, II, 304). He had much experience in command of colored troops. When first assigned to this duty, in 1862, he vigorously opposed the idea of arming slaves, and accepted the command under strong protests; but he was successful with these troops, and in 1864 and 1865 all the infantry regiments of his XXV Corps were colored.

After Lee's surrender, in the concentration of troops in Texas incident to the Maximilian episode, Weitzel commanded the Rio Grande district; but the emergency there having been terminated, he was mustered out of the volunteer service March 1, 1866, and returned to duty with the Corps of Engineers, in which he became a major, August 8, 1866. Thereafter until his death he was engaged in the constructive work of his corps, notably in river and harbor improvement. Of the numerous projects with which he was connected, the most important were the ship canals at the falls of the Ohio and at Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan, and the lighthouse at Stannard's Rock in Lake Superior. Taking over the first of these enterprises in 1867 after much work had been done, he carried it to completion in 1873. At Sault Sainte Marie he supervised the building of what was at the time the largest lock in the world-515 feet long and eighty wide, with a lift of eighteen feet. The lighthouse, with a tower rising 101 feet above the water, involved the construction below water level of a solid concrete foundation, sixty-two feet in diameter, on top of a rock situated thirty miles from shore. In connection with his various enterprises, Weitzel made and published translations of several German works dealing with hydraulic engineering and canal construction.

He was made a lieutenant-colonel June 23, 1882, and shortly afterward, because of failing health, was transferred from the Great Lakes to less arduous duty at Philadelphia, where he died in his forty-ninth year. He was married, shortly before the close of the Civil War, to Louisa Bogen of Cincinnati, and was survived by his wife and a daughter.

[G. W. Cullum, Biographical Register Officers and Graduates U. S. Military Academy (3rd ed., 1891), volume II; 15th Annual Reunion, Association Graduates U.S. Military Academy (1884); War of the Rebellion: Official Records (Army); J. F. Brennan, A Biographical Cyclopedia and Portrait Gallery ... of Ohio (1879); Cincinnati Past and Present (1872); The Biographical Encyclopedia of Ohio of the Nineteenth Century (1876); The Biographical Cyclopedia and Portrait Gallery ... of Ohio, volume III (1884); Charles Moore, The Saint Marys Falls Canal (1907); Army and Navy Journal, March 22, 1884; Philadelphia Press, March 20, 1884.]

O. L. S., Jr.


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

(Barnes, 1933; Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 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)

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI. pp. 425:

WELD, Angelina Emily Grimké, reformer, born in Charleston, South Carolina, 20 February, 1805, is the daughter of Judge John F. Grimké, of South Carolina, but in 1828, with her sister, Sarah M. Grimké (q. v.), she joined the Society of Friends in Philadelphia, afterward emancipating the slaves that she inherited from her parents in 1836. She was the author of an “Appeal to the Christian Women of the South,” which was republished in England with an introduction by George Thompson, and was associated with her sister in delivering public addresses under the auspices of the American anti-slavery society, winning a reputation for eloquence. The controversy that the appearance of the sisters as public speakers caused was the beginning of the woman's rights agitation in this country. She married Mr. Weld on 14 May, 1838, and was afterward associated with him in educational and reformatory work. Besides the work noticed above, she wrote “Letters to Catherine E. Beecher,” a review of the slavery question (Boston, 1837). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI. pp. 425. 


WELD, Ezra Greenleaf, 1801-1874, Hampton, Connecticut, photographer, abolitionist, brother of prominent abolitionist Theodore Dwight Weld.


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.  Weld was a prominent leader in the abolitionist movement.  He converted many late leaders to the cause.  Among them were the Tappan brothers, Congressman Joshua R. Giddings, Edwin Stanton, Henry Ward Beecher and his wife, future author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriett Beecher Stowe.  While at Lane University, Weld led debates on slavery.  These were very controversial.  As a result, the university ended the debates.  This led to many of the students at Lane leaving in protest and going to Oberlin College.  Many of these students became Agents for the American Anti-Slavery Society.  Weld 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).  In the 1840s, he worked with prominent anti-slavery Whig Congressmen.

(Barnes, 1933; Drake, Thomas. Quakers and Slavery in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1950, pp. 138, 140, 158, 173; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 161, 176, 180, 183, 185, 220, 240-241; Filler, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960, pp. 32, 56, 67, 72, 102, 148, 156, 164, 172, 176, 206; Hammond, 2011, pp. 268, 273; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 17, 33, 34, 38, 92, 93, 104, 146, 151, 152, 153, 187, 188, 191, 196, 348, 358; Pease, William H., & Pease, Jane H. The Antislavery Argument. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1965, pp. 94-102; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 42, 46, 106, 321-323, 419, 486, 510-512; Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 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; Hinks, Peter P., & John R. McKivigan, Eds., Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolition.  Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood, 2007, Volume 2, pp. 740-741; Abzug, Robert H. Passionate Liberator: Theodore Dwight Weld and the Dilemma of Reform, New York, 1980; Dumond, Dwight L., ed., Letters of Theodore Dwight Weld, Angelina Grimké Weld and Sarah Grimké, 1822-144, 1965). 

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, Alabama, 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.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI. pp. 425:

WELD, Theodore Dwight, reformer, born in Hampton, Connecticut, 23 November, 1803. He entered Phillips Andover academy in 1819, but was not graduated, on account of failing eyesight. In 1830 he became general agent of the Society for the promotion of manual labor in literary institutions, publishing afterward a valuable report (New York, 1833). He entered Lane theological seminary, Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1833, but left that institution on the suppression of the Anti-slavery society of the seminary by the trustees. Mr. Weld then became well known as an anti-slavery lecturer, but in 1836 he lost his voice, and was appointed by the American anti-slavery society editor of its books and pamphlets. In 1841-'3 he labored in Washington in aid of the anti-slavery members of congress, and in 1854 he established at Eagleswood, New Jersey, a school in which he received pupils irrespective of sex and color. In 1864 he removed to Hyde Park, near Boston, and devoted himself to teaching and lecturing. Mr. Weld is the author of many pamphlets, and of “The Power of Congress over the District of Columbia” (New York, 1837); “The Bible against Slavery” (1837); “American Slavery as it Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses” (1839); and “Slavery and the Internal Slave Trade in the United States” (London, 1841). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI. pp. 425.


WELLS, Alfred, 1814-1867, Dagsboro, Sussex County, Delaware, lawyer, jurist, U.S. Congressman, newspaper publisher, anti-slavery activist.  Member, anti-slavery Nebraska Party, and later the Republican Party.  U.S. Congressman, 36th Congress, 1859-1861.


WELLS, Eleazer M., Boston, Massachusetts, abolitionist.  Vice president, 1833-1835, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.

(Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833)


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.   

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI. pp. 427:

WELLES, Gideon, secretary of the navy, born in Glastonbury, Connecticut, 1 July, 1802; died in Hartford, Connecticut, 11 February, 1878, entered Norwich university, Vermont, but, without being graduated, began to study law. In 1826 he became editor and part owner of the Hartford “Times” with which he remained connected till 1854, though he retired from the responsible editorship in 1836. He made his paper the chief organ of the Democratic party in the state. It was the first to advocate the election of Andrew Jackson to the presidency, and earnestly upheld his administration. Mr. Welles was a member of the legislature in 1827-‘35, and both in that body and in his journal attacked with severity the proposed measure to exclude from the courts witnesses that did not believe in a future state of rewards and punishments. He also labored for years to secure the abolition of imprisonment for debt, opposed special and private legislation, and secured the passage of general laws for the organization of financial corporations. He began an agitation for low postage before the subject had begun to attract general attention. He was chosen comptroller of the state by the legislature in 1835, and elected to that office by popular vote in 1842 and 1843, serving as postmaster of Hartford in the intervening years. From 1846 till 1849 he was chief of the bureau of provisions and clothing in the navy department at Washington. Mr. Welles had always opposed the extension of slavery. He identified himself with the newly formed Republican party in 1855, and in 1856 was its candidate for governor of Connecticut. In 1860 he labored earnestly for the election of Abraham Lincoln, and on the latter's election Mr. Welles was given the portfolio of the navy in his cabinet. Here his executive ability compensated for his previous lack of special knowledge, and though many of his acts were bitterly criticised, his administration was popular with the navy and with the country at large. His facility as a writer made, his state papers more interesting than such documents usually are. In his first report, dated 4 July, 1861, he announced the increase of the effective naval force from forty-two to eighty-two vessels. This and the subsequent increase in a few months to more than 500 vessels was largely due to his energy. In the report that has just been mentioned he also recommended investigations to secure the best iron-clads, and this class of vessels was introduced under his administration. In the cabinet Mr. Welles opposed all arbitrary measures, and objected to the declaration of a blockade of southern ports, holding that this was a virtual acknowledgment of belligerent rights, and that the preferable course would be to close our ports to foreign commerce by proclamation. By request of the president, he presented his ideas in writing; but the cabinet finally yielded to the views of Sec. Seward. Early in the war, on 25 September, 1861, he ordered that the negro refugees that found their way to U. S. vessels should be enlisted in the navy. He held his post till the close of President Johnson's administration in 1869. In 1872 he acted with the Liberal Republicans, and in 1876 he advocated the election of Samuel J. Tilden, afterward taking strong grounds against the electoral commission and its decision. After his retirement from office he contributed freely to current literature on the political and other events of the civil war, and provoked hostile criticism by what many thought his harsh strictures on official conduct. In 1872 he published an elaborate paper to show that the capture of New Orleans in 1862 was due entirely to the navy, and in 1873 a volume entitled “Lincoln and Seward.” Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI. pp. 427.


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, Richard, abolitionist leader, Committee of Twenty-Four/Committee of Education, the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery (PAS), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

(Nash, Gary B., & Soderlund, Jean R. Freedom by Degrees: Emancipation in Pennsylvania and Its Aftermath. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991, p. 129; Zilversmit, Arthur. The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967, p. 97)


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.


WELLS, Samuel, Whitesboro, New York, abolitionist leader.  Manager, 1839-1840, of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS). 

(Abolitionist; Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971)


WELLS, Woolsey, Akron, Ohio, abolitionist.  Manager, 1834-1836, and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.

(Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833)


WELTON, Alonzo, New Jersey, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1838-1839.


WENDOVER, F. H., founding charter member of the American Colonization Society, Washington, DC, December 1816. 

(Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 258n14)


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.  

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 436:

WENTWORTH, John, journalist, born in Sandwich, New Hampshire, 5 March, 1815; died in Chicago, Illinois, 16 October, 1888, was a son of Paul Wentworth, and the grandson on his mother's side of Colonel Amos Cogswell, a Revolutionary officer. After graduation at Dartmouth in 1836, he settled in Illinois in 1836, attended the first meeting to consider the propriety of organizing the town of Chicago into a city, did much to procure its charter, and voted at its first city election in May, 1837. He studied law at Chicago, attended lectures at Harvard law-school, and was admitted to practice in Illinois in 1841. While studying law he conducted the Chicago “Democrat,” which he soon purchased and made the chief daily paper of the northwest and of which he was publisher, editor, and proprietor until 1861. Being elected to congress as a Democrat, he served from 4 December, 1843, till 3 March, 1851, and again from 5 December, 1853, till 3 March, 1855. He introduced in that body the first bill favoring the establishment of the present national warehouse system, was instrumental in securing the grant of land to the state of Illinois out of which was constructed the present Illinois Central railroad. He was one of the Democrats and Whigs in congress that assembled at Crutchet's, at Washington, the morning after the repeal of the Missouri compromise passed the house, and resolved to ignore all party lines and form an anti-slavery party. Out of this grew the present Republican party, with which he afterward acted. He was elected mayor of Chicago in 1857 and again in 1860, and was the first Republican mayor elected in the United States after the formation of the party, and issued the first proclamation after Fort Sumter was fired upon, calling on his fellow-citizens to organize and send soldiers to the war. He introduced the first steam fire-engine, “Long John,” in Chicago in 1857, and later two others, the “Liberty” and “Economy.” Upon each occasion of his assumption of the mayor's office he found a large floating debt, and left money in the treasury for his successor. In 1861 he was a member of the convention to revise the constitution of Illinois, and he was a member of the board of education in 1861-'4 and in 1868-'72. He served again in congress from 4 December, 1865, till 3 March, 1867, was a member of the committee of ways and means, and was an earnest advocate of the immediate resumption of specie payments. Mr. Wentworth had been a member of the Illinois state board of agriculture, and was the largest real estate owner in Cook county. He received the degree of LL. D. from Dartmouth, to which college he gave $10,000, and was elected president of its alumni in 1883. Owing to his extreme height he was called “Long John” Wentworth. In addition to lectures and writings upon the early history of Chicago, and historical contributions to periodicals, he was the author of “Genealogical, Bibliographical, and Biographical Account of the Descendants of Elder William Wentworth” (Boston, 1850), and “History of the Wentworth Family” (3 vols., 1878).  Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888.


WESS, Samuel, Pennsylvania, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1839-1840.


WESTON, Anne Warren, Weymouth, Massachusetts, abolitionist leader.  Co-founder, Officer, Counsellor, life member of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS).  The BFASS “believing slavery to be the direct violation of the laws of God and productive of a vast amount of misery and crime, and convinced that its abolition can only be effected by an acknowledgement of the justice and necessity of immediate emancipation.”  Executive Committee, American Anti-Slavery society (AASS), 1843-1864.  Counsellor, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1844-1860.  Helped organize anti-slavery fairs in Boston.

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 275; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, p. 222; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 199; Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, pp. 40n, 41, 43n, 45, 56, 57n, 61-62, 64, 173, 176n, 253n, 258, 259, 289, 294; BFASS Annual Reports)


WESTON, Caroline, Boston, Massachusetts, abolitionist leader.  Co-founder, Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS). Vice President, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, 1843-1859.  Helped organize anti-slavery fairs in Boston.  Supported William Lloyd Garrison and immediate emancipation. 

(Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 199; Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, pp. 60, 62, 64n, 65, 172, 176, 253n, 256, 285, 294; BFASS Annual Reports)


WESTON, Deborah, Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS).  Helped organize anti-slavery fairs in Boston.  Supported William Lloyd Garrison and immediate emancipation.

(Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 2, pp. 36-37; Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, pp. 40n, 43n, 62, 172, 173, 176, 257-259, 285, 294; BFASS Annual Reports)


WETMORE, Lauren, New York, New York, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1851-1853.


WETMORE, Oliver, New York, abolitionist leader.

(Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971)


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

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.