Benjamin Welles (1781-1860)

He was born at Boston and studied at the Boston Latin School before graduating from Harvard and studying law in the offices of Levi Lincoln of Worcester and Harrison Gray Otis of Boston. In 1804, he and his Harvard classmate, the painter and poet Washington Allston, took off for a tour of Europe in 1804. Starting in Paris, they travelled through Switzerland to Lombardy and passing via Bologna went from Lake Como to Rome and Florence. Back in Boston, in 1807 he went into partnership with Stephen Higginson, William Parsons, Thomas H. Parsons and others as the owners of an iron-mining company in Vergennes, Vermont. In 1812, Welles was appointed sole agent of the concern and taking up residence at Vergennes met Lt. McDonough of the U.S. Navy at Burlington, agreeing to supply ships and cannonballs for his ships for $47,000. In Boston in 1816, he partnered with his brother-in-law and first cousin, John Welles to establish J & B Welles, agents in the United States to Welles & Co., "the great Paris bankers" that was established in 1815 by Benjamin's brother, Samuel. He lived at 16 Chestnut Street, Boston.

He married twice. In 1815, he married Mehitable, the eldest daughter of Governor Increase Sumner, by whom he had two daughters and a son (listed). After she died, he married Susan, daughter of William Codman, of New York, and they had one daughter (listed). On his death, he "left a very large estate" that was estimated to be worth $300,000 in 1851.