Thomas Welles

Thomas Welles ( * ca 1598 in Essex, England; † January 14, 1660 in Connecticut ) was an English politician and the only man in Connecticut's history, held every four higher state offices: Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Minister of Finance and Secretary.

Career

Thomas Welles married on July 5, 1615 in Long Marston, Gloucestershire, Alice Tomes, with whom he had eight children together. He then decided to emigrate to America with his family. They came in 1636 in Boston, Massachusetts on. After his first wife died, he married again in 1646 in Wethersfield Elizabeth, sister of John Deming and widow of Nathaniel Foote. Elizabeth brought in the new relationship with seven children, is said to mention that had Thomas Welles and Elizabeth Deming no common children.

The first appears Governor Thomas Welles' name in Hartford on March 28, 1637 While in the colonial archive of Connecticut (English Colonial Connecticut Records). Welles came with the clergyman Thomas Hooker in June 1636 in Hartford on. Some believe that a license copy in which he is known, confirms this statement. He was elected in 1637 to the Magistrate of the Colony of Connecticut, a post to which he was re-elected each successive year until his death in 1660, over a period of twenty-one years. Furthermore Welles in 1639 for the first finance minister (English Connecticut State Treasurer ) elected the Colony of Connecticut from 1640 to 1649 and had the office of colonial secretary held. In this role he implemented the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, which in the official colonial archive on January 14, 1638 (OS ) and on January 24, 1639 (NS) was recorded. Later, Welles was in 1654 elected Vice- Governor and Governor of the Colony of 1655 Connecticut. After that he was in the years 1656 and 1657 under Lieutenant-Governor John Winthrop, Jr., in 1658 Governor and Deputy Governor again in 1659, a position he held until his death on 14 January 1660.

Family

1645 Welles 's eldest son, John, settled in Stratford, where he worked as a magistrate judge and estate before he died in 1659. His other son, Thomas, moved to Hartford. His daughter, Rebecca, married Captain James Judson and then settled down in 1680 in Stratford. James and Rebecca's son, David, also a captain, Captain David Judson House was built in the what is in the same spot where his great-grandfather William has his first stone house built in 1639. Welles other son, Samuel, was Captain and settled in Wethersfield. His daughter, Sarah, Ephraim Hawley married from Stratford and settled in 1683 in what is now Trumbull, down.

Note

Swell

• Welles Family Genealogy

References

• Frederick Calvin Norton, Governors of Connecticut, 1905
• Reverend Samuel Orcutt, History of the Old Town of Stratford, Connecticut, 1886
• Edmund Welles, The Life and Public Services of Thomas Welles, Fourth Governor of Connecticut, 1940
• Lemuel Welles, The English Ancestry of Gov.. Thomas Welles of Connecticut, New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1926