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Anna Maria Wells

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Anna Maria Wells (née Foster; 1795–1868) was a 19th-century poet and a writer of children’s literature. The poet and editor Sarah Josepha Hale wrote that Wells, as a child, had a "passionate love of reading and music," and began to write verses when very young. In 1830, Wells published Poems and Juvenile Sketches, a compilation of her early work, after which she contributed occasionally to various periodicals. Hale opined that "the predominant characteristics of [Wells'] poetry were tenderness of feeling, and simplicity and perspicuity of language."[1] Wells' contemporaries, in addition to Sarah Hale, were Caroline Howard Gilman, Hannah Flagg Gould, Eliza Leslie, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, and Lydia Huntley Sigourney[2]

Early years

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Anna Maria Wells was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts in 1795 and was baptized there (as Anna Mary Foster) on September 20, 1795.[3] She was the daughter of Captain Benjamin Foster (1769–1795) and his wife, Mary "Polly" Ingersoll (1770–1849).[4] Her father, captain of the brigantine Polly from 1791 until 1794,[5] died between June and September 1795 when she was an infant.[6][7]

Wells' brother, William Vincent Foster (born in 1790),[8] died on April 21, 1817 "on the Coast of Africa."[9] At the time, he was the "master of the John Willis, schooner of Boston...trading with the Natives for ivory."[10]

On October 18, 1800, her widowed mother married Joseph Locke (1767–1838),[11] a Boston merchant and fish dealer, whose first wife had been Mary's sister Martha. After their marriage, Joseph and Mary Locke lived at Boston and Hingham, where they had seven children, among them the poet Frances Sargent Osgood.[12][13]

According to an obituary notice, written in 1868:

[Anna Maria Wells] was born at Gloucester, Massachusetts, and receiving a thorough education, especially in the department of fine arts, became celebrated even in early youth as a painter in water colors, as a musician and poet. In 1824, she won the Handel and Haydn prize — a large and beautiful diamond cross — for the poem delivered at that society's inauguration. Her success was the more noteworthy, as there were many competitors, some of whom had gained a national reputation.

Career and family

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Rev. John Pierpont, drawn by Rembrandt Peale in 1821, the year Pierpont married Anna Maria Foster and Thomas Wells.

Anna Maria Foster and Thomas Wells (1790–1861)[14][15][16] were married at the Hollis Street Church in Boston on August 6, 1821, by Rev. John Pierpont, a poet, lawyer, temperance advocate, and Unitarian minister.[17][18] Thomas Wells was the son of Capt. Thomas Wells, (vintner on Ann Street, "four doors north of the drawbridge"),[19] and a grandson of the Revolutionary War patriot Samuel Adams.[20] He dabbled in poetry while earning his living (from about 1820 to 1828) as an inspector for the U.S. Customs Office in Boston.[21][22] In 1825, he read his poem, Ye Shades of Martyred Heroes, to a crowd of thousands gathered to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, and in 1826, the Boston News-letter announced, "The prize poem delivered at the Hubbard Gallery, was a good thing, written by a good poet, who has taken many good premiums before this for his good midnight lucubrations — Mr. Thomas Wells, as well as his lady, are beautiful writers who never fail of being [number one], when writing for a medal." Several of his poems appeared in Kettel's 1829 Specimens of American Poetry.

Between 1822 and 1828, Anna Wells bore four children,[1] the first of whom was Thomas Foster Wells (1822–1903),[23] a shipping merchant, raiser of shipwrecks, and father of the mathematician Webster Wells and the architect Joseph Morrill Wells. Her third son, William Vincent Wells (1826–1876), wrote a three-volume biography of his ancestor, The Life and Public Services of Samuel Adams, first published in 1865.[24] In 1830, Anna Wells published Poems and Juvenile Sketches, the compilation for which she is best known. The Atlantic Monthly Magazine praised it, writing: "The purest and best poetry for children is written by Mrs. Anna Maria Wells, whose new book lies by us at this moment. We have always been an admirer of the chastened, unaffected, natural vein of this lady's genius...and it is pleasant to know that her delightful book sells rapidly."[25]

In 1834, Thomas Wells left his wife and children and joined the Navy as schoolmaster aboard the frigate USS Potomac and later aboard the frigate USS John Adams. From December 1836 until July 1838, he served aboard the USS Constitution as private secretary to Commodore Jesse Elliott, Commander of the Navy's Mediterranean Squadron, during which time he wrote Letters on Palestine, a chronicle of his side-trips to the Holy Land while stationed in the Middle East.[26] In a biographical sketch of Anna Maria Wells, written in 1837 after Thomas Wells had left Boston, Sarah Josepha Hale wrote that while Wells "was a man of considerable literary talent and taste...unfortunately for his family, he had small inclination for business, and great love for the luxuries of life." According to Hale, the support and education of Anna Wells' four children "was imposed upon her" and that "she found her talent for music the most available for her purpose."[1] The historian Sidney Perley suggested that she earned her living as an educator, writing in an 1889 sketch that "Mrs. Wells' chief attention was given to her school for young ladies."[27] She lived in South Carolina during at least part of the couple's separation, [1][28] and may have been living there in 1837, when the Charleston-based Southern Literary Journal published her ironical short story, Auto-biography of Amelia Sophia Smink.[29]

Thomas Wells' employment by Commodore Elliott caused him to become the central witness in Elliott's court martial trial in 1840. Numerous witnesses were summoned to testify as to Wells' truthfulness, or lack thereof. Among them was Rev. John Pierpont, who testified (answering more than he was asked): "I am a clergyman residing in the city of Boston...I know Mr. Thomas Wells...I officiated at his second marriage, and am quite intimate with the family into which he married...his intemperance is the only point, from any one living, that I ever heard his character called in question; I once heard a person who is now dead speak to the prejudice of his character in another respect; but that person himself did not enjoy the best reputation for truth and veracity...that man questioned his conjugal fidelity...I never heard Mr. Wells's character for truth and veracity questioned by any person whatever; I would believe him as a witness, under oath."[30]

The couple reunited in the late 1830s and had two short-lived children: Joseph Locke Wells (1840–1840) and Mary Ingersoll Wells (1843–1845).[31] In 1842, the New York Herald announced that Edgar Marchant would publish a new Boston daily newspaper, the Daily Circular, "edited by Thomas Welles [sic], Esq., assisted by his talented lady, Mrs. Anna Maria Welles, so well known as a valuable contributor to the periodical literature of our country. Mr. Welles is a man of extensive acquirements, possesses an excellent taste and judgment, and has had the advantage of much travel. Under such management, and with the assistance obtained, the Daily Circular can hardly fail of success, notwithstanding the multiplicity of papers within the last year or two."[32] The newspaper venture seems to have gone nowhere, and by the time of the 1850 census, Anna Wells was living in New York City with her daughter, Anna Wells Whelpley (1828–1860),[33] the wife of Dr. James Davenport Whelpley (1817–1872), physician, philosopher, metallurgist, and editor and part-owner of the American Whig Review. (At the time of the 1855 Massachusetts, the 1860 Federal, and the 1865 Massachusetts censuses, Anna Maria Wells lived in Boston with her son Thomas Foster Wells.)

Death

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Thomas Wells died at Boston on December 11, 1861. Anna Maria Wells died at her home on Centre Street in Roxbury Highlands, Massachusetts, on December 19, 1868.[34] In spite of their having lived apart for many years, they are buried together in Forest Hills Cemetery at Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.

Legacy

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After her death, Anna Maria Wells's cousin, the writer Epes Sargent, published an obituary notice, summarizing her achievements:

In Roxbury, the 19th inst., died Anna Maria Wells, at the age of seventy-three. In the days when our native poets were rarer than now, Mrs. Wells and her husband, the late Thomas Wells (a grandson of Samuel Adams) were quite distinguished in Boston for their writings in verse, which were always marked by good taste and touches of genuine power. Of late years Mrs. Wells had written for children mostly. Some of the best of the poems in that successful little venture, The Nursery, a monthly magazine for children, have been from her pen. She was also a frequent contributor to Our Young Folks. She was a lady of fine literary judgement, and her conversational powers were such as to make her always welcome in society.

Bibliography

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Writing by Anna Maria Wells

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  • Poems and Juvenile Sketches (Boston: Carter, Hendee & Babcock, 1830).
  • "Auto-biography of Amelia Sophia Smink," in The Southern Literary Journal, Vol. 1, No. 6 (August 1837), pp. 501-508.[35]
  • "Sketches from Buncombe, N.C.," in The Poetry of Traveling in the United States (New York: S.Colman, 1838), pp. 269-283.
  • The Flowerlet. A Gift of Love (Boston: William Crosby & Co., 1842).
  • Patty Williams's Voyage. A Story Almost Wholly True (Boston: Walker, Fuller & Co., 1866).
  • "The Future," in The Female Poets of America (Philadelphia: E.H. Butler & Co., 1867).
  • "Mary's First Trial," in Our Young Folks, Vol. 4, No. 11 (November 1868), pp. 657-660.[36]
  • "Compensation," in Overland Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6 (December 1868), p. 524.[37]

Writing about Anna Maria Wells

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  • Bert Roller, "Early American writers for children: Anna Maria Wells," in The Elementary English Review, Vol. 10, No. 5 (May 1933) pp. 119-120, 134.[38]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d Hale 1837, p. 286.
  2. ^ Price & Smith 1995, p. 93.
  3. ^ "Massachusetts Births and Christenings, 1639-1915", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FZZR-Y36 : 15 January 2020), Anna Mary Foster, 1795. NOTE: See Microfilm No. 007729402, page 140/742: "Anna Mary Foster, d[aughter] of wid[ow] Polly, bp. September 20, 1795.
  4. ^ Benjamin Foster and Mary Ingersoll married on January 11, 1789. See: "Massachusetts, Town Clerk, Vital and Town Records, 1626-2001," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q29G-GY89 : 18 February 2020), Benjamin Foster and Polly Ingersoll, 11 Jan 1789; citing Marriage, Gloucester, Essex, Massachusetts, United States, Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, Boston; FHL microfilm 007009706
  5. ^ Joseph Foster, The grandchildren of Col. Joseph Foster : of Ipswich and Gloucester, Mass., 1730-1804 (1885), p.10.
  6. ^ Mary "Polly" Foster was a widow when she baptized her daughter in September 1795.
  7. ^ For an account of Benjamin Foster's last days, see Guns off Gloucester (1975), by Joseph E. Garland, pp.280-281.
  8. ^ "Massachusetts Births and Christenings, 1639-1915", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FZZT-BJJ : 15 January 2020), William Vincent Foster, 1790.
  9. ^ The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Vol. 47 (1916), pp.365-366.
  10. ^ British and Foreign State Papers, 1816–1817 (London: 1838), pp. 139-140.
  11. ^ The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, Volume 47 (1916).
  12. ^ Roller, Bert (May 1933). "Early American Writers for Children: Anna Maria Wells". The Elementary English Review. 10 (5): 119–120, 134. JSTOR 41381589.
  13. ^ Boston City Directories (1803, 1806).
  14. ^ Wells is sometimes conflated with Thomas Wells (1780–1829), a Boston bookbinder. The error can be traced to Whitman's The History of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company (1842), page 378. Whitman mistakenly made the bookbinder a son of Capt. Thomas Wells. Furthermore, the poet's son, Thomas Foster Wells (1822–1903), a shipping merchant, has been conflated with the bookbinder's son, Thomas Gilman Wells (1822–1848), who was a printer.
  15. ^ For Thomas Wells' birth, see: "Massachusetts Births and Christenings, 1639-1915", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VQXK-9S4 : 14 January 2020), Thomas Wells, 1790.
  16. ^ Thomas Wells died on March 11, 1861. The date can be found in Poems of Nature and Life (1899), page 44, by Wells' nephew John Witt Randall. A funeral notice was published in the Boston Evening Transcript, March 12, 1861, p.3.
  17. ^ "Massachusetts Marriages, 1695-1910, 1921-1924", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FHK6-65N : 28 July 2021), Thomas Wells, 1821.
  18. ^ "Massachusetts, Town Clerk, Vital and Town Records, 1626-2001," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QG1K-PB76 : 29 November 2018), Thomas Wells and Anna M Foster, 1821; citing Marriage, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States, Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, Boston; FHL microfilm 007011048. NOTE: Thomas Wells married (1st) at Windsor, Vermont in 1814 Belinda Lull, who died on August 8, 1818, as per Francis S. Drake, Memorials of the Society of the Cincinnati of Massachusetts (1873), pp.503-504.
  19. ^ The Boston Directory, (Boston: John Norman, 1789), p. 46.
  20. ^ In his Will (1803), Samuel Adams bequeathed "all my real estate in the town of Boston" to Thomas Wells, Thomas's sister Elizabeth Wells Randall (1783–1868), and his brother, Samuel Adams Wells (1787–1840). In her Will (1808), Adams' second wife, Elizabeth Wells Adams, left Thomas Wells “[Thomas] Stackhouse on the Bible, in two volumes" and other books.
  21. ^ Boston City Directories (1820, 1822, 1826, and 1828). Wells probably lost his job after Andrew Jackson defeated John Quincy Adams in the 1828 presidential election.
  22. ^ Griswold 1858, p. 63.
  23. ^ "Massachusetts Deaths, 1841-1915, 1921-1924," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NWF9-6H6 : 2 March 2021), Thomas Wells in entry for Thomas F. Wells, 14 Jan 1903; citing Winchester, Massachusetts, v 540 cn 5, State Archives, Boston; FHL microfilm 2,057,764.
  24. ^ New England Historical and Genealogical Register, Vol 23, 1869, p. 233.
  25. ^ "The Editor's Table," in The Atlantic Monthly Magazine, January 1839, page 709.
  26. ^ The second edition was published in 1846.
  27. ^ Perley 1889, p. 177.
  28. ^ Army and Navy Chronicle, Vol 11, No. 8, August 20, 1840, page 131.
  29. ^ Wells, Anna Maria (August 1837). "Auto-biography of Amelia Sophia Smink". The Southern Literary Journal. 1 (6): 501–508. Retrieved March 20, 2022.
  30. ^ Army and Navy Chronicle, Vol 11, No. 8, August 20, 1840, page 114.
  31. ^ Descendants of John Adams, Samuel Adams, Josiah Bartlett, and Carter Braxton, Signers of the Declaration of Independence, Collections of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (1899).
  32. ^ New York Herald, July 19, 1842, page 1.
  33. ^ "United States Census, 1850," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V5PX-XDK : 23 December 2020), Anna P Wells in household of Anna P Whelpley, New York City, New York County, New York, United States; citing family , NARA microfilm publication (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).
  34. ^ "Massachusetts, Town Clerk, Vital and Town Records, 1626-2001," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FH4G-RP8 : 10 November 2020), Anna M Foster Wells, 19 Dec 1868; citing Death, Boston, Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States, Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, Boston; FHL microfilm 004273932.
  35. ^ Wells, Anna Maria (August 1837). "Auto-biography of Amelia Sophia Smink". The Southern Literary Journal. 1 (6): 501–508. Retrieved March 20, 2022.
  36. ^ Wells, Anna Maria (November 1868). "Mary's First Trial". Our Young Folks. IV (XI): 657–660. Retrieved March 10, 2022.
  37. ^ Wells, Anna Maria (December 1868). "Compensation". Overland Monthly. I (6): 524. Retrieved March 10, 2022.
  38. ^ ROLLER, BERT. “Early American Writers for Children: Anna Maria Wells.” The Elementary English Review, vol. 10, no. 5, National Council of Teachers of English, 1933, pp. 119–34, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41381589.

Bibliography

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