Welles, Benjamin, 1781-1860.

Prominent financier Benjamin Welles was born in Boston on August 13, 1781. His father, Samuel Wells (1725-1799) was a successful Boston merchant who graduated in Harvard's Class of 1744, and his mother, Isabella Pratt Welles, was daughter of Chief Justice Pratt of New York. Like his father, Welles attended Harvard College, graduating with the class of 1800. Following graduation, he studied law with Levi Lincoln of Worcester, Massachusetts and with Harrison Gray Otis of Boston. In 1803 he went to Europe for further study, and he spent part of 1804 traveling in Europe with a classmate, the painter Washington Allston. Upon his return to Boston in 1804, Welles became involved with an iron mining organization in Vergennes, Vermont. By 1816 he was involved in family banking endeavors with Samuel and John Welles. Samuel established the first American banking house in France (Welles & Co.) and John and Benjamin ran an auxiliary business based in Boston. In 1815 Benjamin married Mehitable Sumner, the eldest daughter of Increase Sumner (fifth Governor of Massachusetts). They had three children: Elizabeth, Georgianna, and Benjamin. Following Mehitable's death, Welles remarried in 1831 to Susan Codman (1802-1877); they had one daughter. Benjamin Welles died suddenly of apoplexy in his Boston home on July 21, 1860.

From the description of A Catalogue of Books in the College Library [which Benjamin Welles wished to read], 1797. (Harvard University). WorldCat record id: 670309758

...