Page:Men of Mark in America vol 2.djvu/460

 GEORGE PEABODY WETMORE ETMORE, GEORGE PEABODY. The Wetmore family of America had its first representative in Thomas Whitmore, who emigrated from England and settled in Middletown, Connecticut, in 1635. A descendant of his, Seth Wetmore, early in the nineteenth century, was a member of the governor's council in Vermont and a fellow of the University of Vermont; and his son William Shepard Wetmore, became a prominent and wealthy merchant, conducting a business house for some years in Valparaiso, Chile, and in 1833 founding a mercantile establishment in Canton, China, which became the very prominent house of Wetmore & Company. He returned to America in 1837, his son (now Senator George Peabody Wetmore) being born during a visit of his parents to London, England, on August 2, 1846. The mother of the subject of our sketch Anstiss D. (Rogers) Wetmore, was a descendant of John Rogers, a former president of Harvard college.

Mr. Wetmore obtained his early education in Newport, Rhode Island, where his father became a resident in 1850. He subsequently entered Yale university, graduating in 1867, and afterward pursued a course of legal study in Columbia law school. On December 22, 1869, he married Edith Malvina Keteltas, of New York, and in the same year he was admitted to the bar in Rhode Island and New York. His first political honor was as head of the electoral ticket of Rhode Island for Garfield and Arthur in 1880, followed by a similar service for Blaine and Logan in 1884. In 1881, on the occasion of the celebration of the surrender of the British at Yorktown a century before, Mr. Wetmore was a member of the state committee to receive the French delegation to the ceremonies, during its visit to Rhode Island. He gave a brilliant reception to President Arthur on his visit to Newport in 1883.

Mr. Wetmore began his official career in 1885, when he was elected governor of Rhode Island. He was elected for a second term in 1886, but sustained defeat in 1887, and in 1889 was defeated in the election contest for the United States senate. His aspiration and