Thomas Welles - Biography

Biography

Life

Welles was born in Stourton, Whichford, Warwickshire, England around 1590, the son of Robert Welles and Alice (unknown) of Stourton, Warwickshire, England, born about 1543. He married Alice Tomes soon after 5 July 1615 in Long Marston, Gloucestershire, England. She was born around 1593 in Long Marston, Gloucestershire, England, the daughter of John Tomes and Ellen (Gunne) Phelps. A brother of Alice Tomes-Welles, also named John Tomes like his father, was a faithful royalist who during the escape of Charles II sheltered him in his home on the night of 10 September 1651 when the king was a fugitive after the Battle of Worcester.

After the death of Alice, Welles married again about 1646 in Wethersfield, Connecticut. His second wife was Elizabeth (Deming) Foote, who was a sister of John Deming and the widow of Nathaniel Foote. Elizabeth had seven children by her previous marriage; there were no children from the second marriage.

The first appearance of Governor Thomas Welles's name in Hartford was on 28 March 1637, according to the Connecticut Colonial Records. Welles came to Hartford with Reverend Thomas Hooker in June 1636. Some believe a copy of a grant in which he is named confirms this statement. He was chosen a magistrate of the Colony of Connecticut in 1637, an office he held every successive year until his death in 1660, a period of twenty-two years. He was elected deputy governor in 1654, and governor of the Connecticut Colony in 1655, and in 1656 and 1657 was deputy governor to John Winthrop the Younger; in 1658 governor, and in 1659 deputy governor, which position he held at his death on January 14, 1660 at Wethersfield, Connecticut.

It is thought that he was buried in Wethersfield, Connecticut. Some sources indicate that his remains were later transferred to the Ancient Burying Ground in Hartford. In either case, his grave is presently unmarked. His name appears on the Founders of Hartford, Connecticut Monument in Hartford's Ancient Burying Ground.

Children

• John (1622–7 August 1659), settled in Stratford in 1645, serving as a magistrate and a probate judge there before his death in 1659. His son, John, married Mary Hollister the daughter of Lt, John Hollister and Joanna Treat, the daughter of Richard Treat.

• Thomas, settled in Hartford, Connecticut; his daughter Rebecca married Captain James Judson and settled in Stratford, Connecticut in 1680 James and Rebecca's son David, also a Captain, built the Captain David Judson House, located on the same spot where his great grandfather William had built his first house, made of stone, in 1639.

• Samuel, became a Captain and settled in Wethersfield, Connecticut. He married as his first wife, Elizabeth Hollister, the daughter of Lt, John Hollister and Joanna Treat, the daughter of Richard Treat. Elizabeth and Samuel were the parents of six children. Elizabeth died in 1659 and he married as his second wife,Hannah, the daughter of George Lamberton of the New Haven Colony. There were no children by the second marriage. His son Samuel married Ruth Rice, daughter of Edmund Rice, on 20 June 1683 and they had six children.

• Captain Samuel's daughter Sarah married Ephraim Hawley of Stratford and settled in what is now Trumbull in 1683. Sarah and Ephraim's Great-Granddaughter was Abigail Wolcott, (8 February 1756–4 August 1818) who married on 10 December 1772, Oliver Ellsworth (29 April 1745–26 November 1807), Princeton University 1764, who was an American lawyer and politician, a drafter of the United States Constitution, and the third Chief Justice of the United States.