Letters from Benjamin Welles to John Henry Tudor, 1799-1801.

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Letters from Benjamin Welles to John Henry Tudor, 1799-1801.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/670310203

Benjamin Welles wrote these six letters to his friend and classmate, John Henry Tudor, between 1799 and 1801. Four of the letters are dated, and the dates of the other two can be deduced from their contents. Welles wrote Tudor four times in September 1799, at the onset of their senior year at Harvard, in an attempt to clear up hurt feelings and false rumors that he believed had caused a chill in their friendship. The cause of the rift is never fully explained, though Welles alludes to "a viper" and "villainous hypocrite" who apparently spread rumors and fueled discord between the two friends. In one letter, Welles asserts that "College is a rascal's Elysium - or the feeling man's hell." In another he writes: "College, Tudor, is a furnace to the phlegmatic, & a Greenland to thee feeling man; it has an atmosphere which breathes contagion to the soul [...] Villains fatten here. College is the embryo of hell." Whatever their discord, the wounds were apparently eventually healed; in a letter written June 26, 1800, Welles writes to ask Tudor about his impending speech at Commencement exercises. In an October 29, 1801 letter, Welles writes to Tudor in Philadelphia (where he appears to have traveled in attempts to recover his failing health) and expresses strong wishes for his friend's recovery and return to Boston. This letter also contains news of their classmate Washington Allston's meeting with painters Henry Fuseli and Benjamin West.

.10 cubic feet (6 letters)

Harvard University Archives.

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SNAC Resource ID: 7964357

Harvard University Archives.

Related Entities

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Harvard University

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Harvard College was founded by a vote of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts on October 28, 1636 that allocated “400£ towards a schoale or colledge.” Subsequent legislative acts established the Board of Overseers, but it was the Charter of 1650 that created the Harvard Corporation as the College's primary governing board and defined its composition and authority. The College Charter became a contentious target for College officials, the Massachusetts Governor and General C...

Allston, Washington, 1779-1843

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Tudor, John Henry, 1782-1802.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6nk3khg (person)

John Henry Tudor was born in Boston on April 13, 1782 to Delia Jarvis Tudor (1753-1843) and William Tudor (1750-1819). His father was a Boston lawyer who had served as Judge Advocate of the Continental Army under George Washington prior to his service in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, in the State Senate, and as secretary of state for the Commonwealth. John Henry had three brothers and two sisters: William (1779-1830), Frederic (1783-1864), Emma Jane (1785-1865), Delia (1787-1861), ...

Welles, Benjamin, 1781-1860.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6ht5h2r (person)

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...

Harvard College (1780- ). Class of 1800

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