Wells, John D. (John Dunlap), 1815-1903

Pastor of the South Third Avenue Presbyterian Church of Williamsburg, 1850-1903.

John Dunlap Wells was born in 1815 in Whitesboro, N.Y. to Solomon Wells and Marion Dunlap. He graduated in 1838 from Union College in Schenectady, N.Y., and was principal of Green Academy in Huntsville, AL from 1838 to 1840. He later attended the Theological Seminary at Princeton, N.J., from which he graduated in 1844. Between 1842 and 1850, Wells held ministries at several presbyteries, and also taught the parish school at the First Presbyterian Church in New York City. In 1850, Wells was ordained by the presbytery of New York and became pastor of the Presbyterian Church of the Village of Williamsburgh. Some point after 1855, when Williamsburgh was annexed by the City of Brooklyn, the name of the Church was changed to the South Third Street Presbyterian Church. Wells served this congregation until his death in 1903.

Wells married Jessie Henderson, daughter of David Henderson and Jessie Cairns, in 1849, and the couple had seven children. A son, Newell Woolsey, was later the junior pastor of the South Third Street Presbyterian Church. In addition to his pastorate, John D. Wells was Secretary of the Williamsburgh Bible Society; Secretary, Vice-President, and President of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.; a trustee of the Princeton Theological Seminary; and a member of the board of the New York State Colonization Society.