Finding aid for the Melancthon Woolsey Welles Papers

Biography of Melancthon Woolsey Welles

Melancthon Woolsey Welles (1802-1896) was born May 26, 1802, in Laneboro, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, the son of Melancthon Woolsey and Abigail Buel Welles. He moved with his family to Lowville, Lewis County, New York, and was educated at Lowville Academy. He left school at age seventeen. His sister, Mary Seymour Welles (1799-1882), married a resident of Cleveland, Ohio, Alfred Kelley (1789-1859), in 1817. Woolsey Welles came to Cleveland ca. 1819 to study law at the firm of Kelley and Cowles. He was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1823. He then moved to Elyria, Lorain County, Ohio, and was appointed the first prosecuting attorney for that county in 1824, a position he held for two years.

In 1826, Welles moved to Akron, Ohio, to become the first toll collector at Akron on the Ohio and Erie Canal. Welles was present on July 2, 1827, when the first boat, carrying Governor Allen Trimble, came through the canal at Akron on its way to opening ceremonies in Cleveland. Welles held the position of toll collector for two years, resigning in 1828 over the issue of the collecting of tolls on Sundays. While in Akron, Welles also served as the first postmaster (ca. 1826-1833), was a justice of the peace (ca. 1829-1834), and practiced law. Welles married Mary W. Brown (ca. 1806-1836), the daughter of Henry Brown of Brownhelm, Lorain County, Ohio, in that county on January 1, 1828. In 1831, he and Mary became members of the First Presbyterian Church of Middlebury (which later became a part of Akron). Welles was said to live in a large home on the corner of West Exchange and Water Streets in Akron. Welles was a member of the Portage County Temperance Society and signed a circular letter published by that group in 1829. He was an incorporator of the Akron Lyceum and Library Association. In 1834, he resigned his position as justice of the peace in order to become a traveling agent for the Ohio State Temperance Society. Temperance and anti-slavery issues would become a major focus of his life.

Welles left Akron and moved back to Elyria in 1835. He there practiced law in partnership with Heman Birch. Mary Welles died in Elyria on April 19, 1836. Welles married Zilpha L. Henderson in Lorain County on December 21, 1836. He had a number of children with both wives. In 1837, Welles moved to Cleveland and the next year, entered into a law partnership with Edward Wade. Edward Hamlin later joined them in the firm of Wade, Welles, and Hamlin. The partnership was dissolved in 1840. Welles also ran for justice of the peace in Cuyahoga County in 1839 and 1841, but did not win.

Welles was active in temperance and anti-slavery circles while in Cleveland. He was elected a manager of the Cleveland City Temperance Society in 1839, and was a frequent lecturer at temperance group meetings. He was also active in anti-slavery groups, participating in a debate over fugitive slave laws at the Cleveland Lyceum on March 1, 1839, and writing letters to the editor as the corresponding secretary of the Cuyahoga County Anti-Slavery Society. At an Abolition Convention held in Cleveland in September 1841, Welles was named prosecuting attorney for the group. He also continued his temperance endeavors, acting as a committee chairman of the Temperance Committee of Safety in Cleveland in July 1841, and giving a speech at the first public meeting of the Washington Total Abstinence Society in Cleveland on October 7, 1841. That same year, Welles moved back to Elyria, where he remained active in the anti-slavery movement. During the 1840s, he became a member of the Liberty Party, and subsequently, the Free Soil Party.

Welles remained in Elyria approximately eight years. In 1849, through the auspices of Dr. Norton S. Townshend, a Free Soil Ohio legislator from Lorain County, Welles was appointed state agent for the sale of school lands. At his appointment, Welles moved to Defiance, Defiance County, Ohio. He lived there about nine years. By 1860, Welles was living at Fort Dodge, Webster County, Iowa, and working as a land agent. He lived there the remainder of his life and died there November 16, 1896.

Scope and Content

The Melancthon Woolsey Welles Papers, 1818-1896 (1822-1850) consist of accounts, a journal, letters, articles of agreement, notes, memoranda, newspaper circular letters, newspaper clippings, deeds, receipts, drafts, commissions and appointments, business cards, a speech, a petition, a constitution, and a photocopy of a manuscript map (original removed to the Manuscript Map Collection as MS Map 486A).

This collection is of value to researchers interested in the study of early nineteenth century Cleveland, Akron, and Elyria, Ohio, history. Of particular interest to the study of early Akron is the ca. 1825 manuscript map of the village of Akron. Those studying the Ohio and Erie Canal in its early years will find information, as will researchers interested in the history of the post office and of the legal profession in the United States during the 1820s through the 1850s. The collection is also of value to the study of the temperance and anti-slavery movements of the first half of the nineteenth century, and to the study of the Liberty Party of the 1840s.

Statement of Arrangement

Restrictions on Access

None.

The reseacher should also consult the manuscript vertical file, "W," for a letter signed by Woolsey Welles dated September 15, 1831, and an address made by him before the Historical Society of Elyria in 1860. Researchers interested in the Ohio and Erie Canal in Akron should consult MS Map 266 for an 1833 map of the boundaries of lots nos. 176, 175, and 174 along the Ohio and Erie Canal in Akron; MS 3909 Richard Howe Survey Book, a survey from Cleveland to Summit Lake by the canal's engineer; and MS 3122 Simon Perkins Papers.

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

Subjects:

Preferred Citation

[Container ___, Folder ___ ] MS 4759 Melancthon Woolsey Welles Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio

Acquisition Information

Frank Wilder, Sr. and Margaret Wilder, 1996

Processing Information

Processed by Deborah R. Shell in 1997

Detailed Description of The Collection