Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1889, volume 6).djvu/463

Rh theological seminary and of Columbia college in 1815-23. The degree of LL. D. was given him by Princeton. A bust was erected by the bar of New York in Grace church, of which he was a vestry- man, and upon the removal of the church it was E laced in St. Paul's chapel, where it still remains, ee " Memorial of the Life and Character of John Wells " (printed privately, New York, 1874).

WELLS, John Sullivan, senator, b. in Dur- ham, N. H., 18 Oct., 1803 ; d. in Exeter, N. H., 1 Aug., 1860. His mother was a niece of Gen. John Sullivan. He studied law, teaching to support himself, was admitted to the bar, and practised for five years in Guildhall, Vt., and after 1846 at Exe- ter, N. H. Mr. Wells filled various local offices, was for many years a member of the lower house of the legislature, serving in 1841 as its speaker, and was president of the state senate in 1852-3. He was also attorney-general of the state in 1847. In 1854 he was Democratic candidate for U. S. senator, but was defeated by five votes on account of his approval of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. Short- ly afterward he was appointed a U. S. senator to fill the vacancy that was caused by the death of Moses Norris, holding his seat from 22 Jan. till 3 March, 1855. He was again a candidate in that year and in 1860. He was the Democratic candi- date for governor in 1856-'7, and sat in two Na- tional conventions. — His brother, Samuel, jurist, b. in Durham, N. H., 15 Aug., 1801 ; d. in Boston, Mass., 15 July, 1868, was self-educated, became a lawyer, and in 1836-'7 sat in the Maine legislature. From 1847 till 1854 he was on the supreme bench of the state, and in 1855-6 he was governor.

WELLS, Robert, printer, b. in Scotland in 1728; d. in London, England, in 1794. He re- moved to Charleston, S. C, in 1758, and established himself as a book-seller and publisher. He was the chief book-seller in the Carolinas for many years, and published a paper called " The South Carolina and American General Gazette." At the open- ing of the Revolution he resigned his business to his son John and returned to Europe. His es- tate was confiscated in 1782. Mr. Wells ac- quired a fortune in England, but lost most of it. While in Charleston he wrote and published a " Travestie of Virgil." — His son,William Charles, scientist, b. in Charleston, S. C, in May, 1757 ; d. in London, England, 18 Sept., 1817, was placed at school in Dumfries, Scotland, in 1767, and entered Edinburgh university in 1770, but returned to Charleston in 1771, and in 1775, refusing to sign the " Association," a patriotic paper, embarked for London. He then resumed medical studies at Edinburgh, and in 1780 received his degree. After a short service as surgeon of a Scottish regiment in Holland he went back to Charleston in 1781 to ar- range his family affairs. There he was a printer, book-seller, and merchant, and wrote a paper to show that Whigs of rank that appeared in arms after being sent home on parole should be put to death. He also published about this time a description of Henry Laurens under the signature of '• Marius." When the British evacuated Charleston in Decem- ber, 1782, Dr. Wells accompanied them to St. Au- gustine, Fla., where he edited the first weekly pa- per in the province, was captain of a military com- pany, and managed a theatre that was established by young officers for the benefit of loyalist refu- gees. In 1784 he established himself in practice in London, where in 1788 he was admitted as a licen- tiate of the College of physicians, in 1790 elected physician to Finsbury dispensary, and in 1800 a physician of St. Thomas's hospital. His reputa- tion as a scientist rest's principally on his celebrated "Essay on Dew and Several Appearances con- nected with It" (London, 1814), by which he is chiefly known. This was the first announcement of a comprehensive theory of dew, and its conclu- sions, which were drawn from a series of ingenious experiments, are accepted to-day with slight modi- fications. His experimental work on this subject was remarkable for patient research, close reason- ing, and the simplicity of the means that he em- ployed. He was the first to show the relation of radiation to the deposition of dew and to explain the true origin and nature of the latter, which had generally been misunderstood. His essay on " Sin- gle Vision with Two Eyes," which had" appeared previously (1792), had gained him an election in 1793 to the Royal society of London, which in 1816 awarded him the gold and silver Rumford medals. He also was chosen to the Royal society of Edin- burgh in 1814. In 1813 Dr. Wells read "before the Royal society a paper in which, says Charles R. Darwin, " he distinctly recognizes the principle of natural selection, and this is the first recognition that has been indicated." A volume containing his essays and an autobiographical sketch ap- peared after his death (Edinburgh, 1818). WELLS, Samuel Roberts, phrenologist, b. in West Hartford, Conn., 4 April, 1820; d. in New York city, 13 April, 1875. He studied medicine, and obtained his degree, but never practised. He early became interested in phrenology, and was also one of the first advocates of an exclusively vegetable diet. In 1845 he became a partner in the publishing-house of 0. S. and L. N. Fowler in New York city, the firm-name being Fowlers and Wells, and in 1865 he became sole proprietor. Mr. Wells edited the "Water-Cure Journal" in 1850-62, the " Phrenological Journal " from 1863 till his death, and the " Annual of Phrenology and Physiognomy " after 1865. He accompanied Lo- renzo N. Fowler in phrenological lecturing tours in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain, and was the author, among other works, of " The New Physiognomy, or Signs of Character" (New York, 1866); "How to read Character" (1869); and " Wedlock, or the Right Relations of the Sexes " (1869).— His wife, Charlotte Fowler, b. in Co- hocton, Steuben co., N. Y., 14 Aug., 1814, is a sis- ter of the Fowler brothers. She was educated at Franklin academy, Prattsburg, N. Y., and in 1834 became interested in phrenology, which she taught as early as 1835. She joined her brothers in their New York enterprise in 1837, married Mr. Wells in 1844, and after her husband's death succeeded to the management of his business.

WELLS, Walter, author, b. in Salisbury, N. H., in November, 1830; d. in Portland, Me., 21 April, 1881. He was graduated at Bowdoin in 1852, and then taught in the high-school at Augusta, Me., for several years. subsequently he lectured on scientific subjects, and was connected with the Western university of Pennsylvania, where he was invited to take charge of the chair of physical geography in the scientific department. In 1867 he was appointed to the hydrographic survey of Maine, and he published in connection with that work "The Water -Power of Maine" (Augusta, 1869). Subsequently he became connected with the Fairbanks scale company, and then was in the employ of various railroads. He was appointed in 1869 secretary of the National association of cotton manufacturers and planters in Boston, and made an exhaustive report on the tariff in relation to the growth and manufacture of cotton in this country. Mr. Wells also contributed papers 'to the periodical press, and prepared an elementary physi-