USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Historic homes and places and genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Volume II > Part 13
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(V) Colonel John Buttrick, son of Colonel John Buttrick (4), was born at Concord, Oc- tober 8, 1761, died September 1I, 1825, at Concord. He was an active and lead- ing citizen of Concord and rose to the rank of colonel in the state militia. He served in the Revolution also, a private in Captain Josh- ua Leland's company from September 29 to November 10, 1779, in the regiment of Major Nathaniel Heath. This company was de- tached to man forts at and about Boston. He was a fifer in Captain Hosmer's company at one time during the war. He married (first), December 10, 1795, Lydia Wheeler, and (sec- ond), December 9, 1813, Hannah Wheeler. Both marriages were performed by Rev. Ezra Ripley. Children: I. John, born October 18, 1796, mentioned below. 2. Charlotte, born September 27, 1798. 3. Grosvenor, born Feb- ruary 22, 1801. 4. David Wheeler, born Sep- tember 27, 1804. 5. Esther Rebecca, born May 20, 1810, died June 27, 1811. 6. James Coburn, died December 16, 1807. Children of the second wife: 7. Emeline Lydia, born Oc- tober I, 1814. 8. George Horatio, born May 9, 1817.
(VI) John Buttrick, son of Colonel John Buttrick (5), was born at Concord, October
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18, 1796. He learned the trade of carpenter, and was educated in the district schools of his native town. He lived there until after his marriage. About 1828 he removed to Lowell, Massachusetts, and followed his trade as car- penter and builder the remainder of his days. He died there in 1880. He was an active Re- publican in politics, though he never sought public office himself. He attended the Con- gregational church. He married, May 29, 1828, Lucretia Buttrick, of Concord. She died in 1892, aged ninety years. Children : I. John H., born July 10, 1830, mentioned below. 2. Ellen E., born March 13, 1832. 3. James G., born March 7, 1835, mentioned below. 4. Martha M., born in Lowell, December 29, 1836, educated in the public and high schools of Lowell where she has always lived; mem- ber of the Congregational church and active in church and charitable work, having endowed a bed in the Woman's Christian Association.
(VII) John H. Buttrick, son of John Butt- rick (6), was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, July 10, 1830. He was educated in the high schools and then entered Dartmouth College, where he remained three years and graduated with honors. He then read law for a time and then became cashier of the Wamesit Bank of Lowell and filled that position with great cred- it for many years. He was president of the Putman Nail Company of Boston many years, and was a director in same company thirty years and never missed a meeting. He was a partner of the F. A. Butcher Drug Company and a director of the Faneuil Insurance Com- pany. He was a man of retiring disposition, and retired from active business in the latter years of his life and looked after his property and other interests. He was an independent in politics and never aspired to office. He gave freely in a quiet manner. He died January 23, 1902, in Lowell. He married, October 10, 1889, Catherine T. McAvoy, of Lowell. They were married in St. Patrick's Church. She was a daughter of the late Hugh McAvoy, an old family of respectability of Lowell, Massa- chusetts. Mrs. Buttrick survives her husband. she is closely identified with the church work and is a member of the St. Patrick's Church. She gives freely to charity and is much re- spected and beloved by all who know her.
(VII) James G. Buttrick, son of John Buttrick (6), was born in Lowell, March 7, 1835. He was educated in the public and high schools of his native place. When sixteen years of age he entered the employ of Buttrick & Co. as bookkeeper and continued in that po- sition for four years. He became treasurer of
the Lowell Institution of Savings during the Civil war, and was successful in managing this savings bank during the trying times of the war and immediately after. On one occasion he averted an incipient panic. He entered the employ of the government and was stationed for a time at Fortress Monroe. He remained in the internal revenue service at Lowell and became the acting collector of internal revenue for the Seventh District. He resigned in 1871 to accept the treasurership of the Thorndike Manufacturing Company of Lowell and served that corporation with credit and honor for many years. He was a skillful financier and gifted with executive ability of high or- der. Of the strictest integrity and fidelity he studied the interests of the concern and man- aged it with shrewdness and sagacity. A few years before his death, he resigned and lived in comparative retirement. He died at his residence in Lowell, April 6, 1905. His widow and family reside at the attractive home on Wilder street. In religion Mr. Buttrick was a Congregationalist, a devout member and lib- eral supporter of the Old Appleton Congrega- tional Church, serving on various committees of church and parish. He organized the move- ment that resulted in the Highland Congre- gational Church; was on the committee to pro- cure the land for a site and was superintend- ent of its Sunday school. He was an earnest and influential member of the Merrimac Val- ley Congregational Club. He was a member of the Lowell Board of Trade, and ranked high in the estimation of the business. men of the city. His judgment on the value of real estate was particularly good. He gave the land for the building of the Young Women's Christian Association in connection with his sister Martha M., in Lowell, in the organiza- tion of which he was a leading factor. He married, October 3, 1871, Clara Lawrence Gates, youngest daughter of Noah F. and Sarah (Lawrence) Gates, of Lowell. She was a teacher of music in the public schools. Chil- dren : I. Ernest G., born in Lowell, June 28, 1873. 2. Helen, born in Lowell, February 15, 1876.
Thomas Wells, the immigrant WELLS ancestor of Judge Henry Jack- son Wells, of Cambridge, Mas- sachusetts, was born in Colchester, Essex, England, in 1605. He was born and lived up to his thirtieth year in one of the oldest forti- fied towns of England. The remains of the old Roman wall that in his time still surround-
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ed the ancient town must have been an object of wonder and study. Colne Castle, on which ancient ruins, built in the time of William II, (Rufus, the son of William The Conqueror) he undoubtedly had stood and measured the thickness and strength of its massive walls, from ten to thirty feet wide, and constituting the largest Norman Keep in England, and from which stronghold William II went forth to do battle with the disputants of his right to reign; St. Botolph's Priory, built by the Norman workmen in Norman style and with Norman strength; Holy Trinity Chapel, or Church, of Saxon origin and architecture, not pleasantly associated with the Puritan spirit that possessed the youth looking forward to the New World for liberation from fetters upon conscience and personal liberty. Such were the memories he had left behind. Then he had heard of the two terrible plagues that had already visited and ravaged the town, but was spared the repetition of the calamity as it actually occurred during his own lifetime in 1665, but the knowledge of it probably did not come to him at his new home in America as he died the same or the next year. We can hear him recite to his children the legend of the ori- gin of the modern name of his native town, as coming from the veritable "Old King Cole" who was born and lived in Colchester and the name of the "merry old soul" attached itself to the place.
The transition from this town of legend, the scene of Norman and Saxon warfare, with its boyhood associations, to the wilderness of New England with no history, no ruins, no priory, no massive churches, no ancient castles, no impregnable fortresses, must have been of im- pression. Freedom to worship God in the spirit of Puritan simplicity was stamped on all he saw. No need of fortress or priory, or ma- sonry churches, far removed from the scenes of strife that attended Royalty and with no history of contending factious fights for su- premacy confronted him now. He was thirty years of age when he took passage in the com- pany of Richard Saltonstall, his own brother Deacon Richard Wells of Salisbury, and prob- ably another brother, Nathaniel Wells, who settled in Rhode Island, on the ship "Susan and Ellen" bound for the Massachusetts Col- ony, and he settled in Ipswich where he mar- ried Abigail, daughter of John Warner, an- other immigrant of Ipswich, and the first grant of land was received by him as a proprietor in 1635. He was admitted as a freeman May 17, 1637, and he joined his fellow farmers in the cultivation of the common lands known by the
Indians as "Aggawam," and as success attend- ed his efforts as a husbandman he received other grants of land in 1651. He was a lead- ing man in the town and appears to have been interested in the education of not only his own children, but of those of the other early set- tlers ; his third son, Thomas, born in Ipswich, January 1, 1646, was a student at Harvard College under a provision of the will of his father. It is probable he was a member of the class of 1669, and his name appears in the Harvard Catalogue as an honorary Master of Arts, the degree having been conferred in the year 1703, the first person to receive the hon- orary Master of Arts from the college, and named in the catalogue next to Increase Mather, who was graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1656, and who was given the honorary de- gree of S. T. D. in 1692. The Rev. Thomas Wells was married January 10, 1669-70, to Mary Perkins, and when his brother John set- tled at Wells, Maine, and married Sarah Lit- tlefield, the Rev. Thomas Wells purchased land there and was living in Wells in Decem- ber, 1669. He purchased in Kittery and the Isle of Shoals in 1670, and two or three years thereafter became settled minister at Ames- bury, and was a leading spirit of the time for fifty years, dying in Amesbury, Massachusetts Bay Colony, July 10, 1734. The other children of Thomas and Abigail (Warner) Wells were : Nathaniel (q. v.). John, who settled and founded the town of Wells, Maine. Sarah, who married John Massey, of Salem. Abigail, who married Nathaniel Treadwell. Elizabeth, who married John Burnham. Hannah. Lydia, who married a Mr. Rogers. Abigail (Warner) Wells died in Ipswich, July 22, 1671. She outlived her husband nearly five years, as he died in Ipswich, October 26, 1666.
(II) Nathaniel Wells, the first son and eld- est child of Thomas and Abigail (Warner) Wells, was born in Ipswich, Massachusetts Bay Colony, about 1636. He married, Octo- ber 29, 1661, Lydia, daughter of Richard and Jane Thurley, who carried on a farm at Row- ley, an adjoining town to Ipswich, and they had seven children, the fourth child being their first son receiving the name of his father. Nathaniel Wells, Sr., died in Rowley, Decem- ber 15, 1675.
(III) Nathaniel Wells, the fourth and eld- est son of Nathaniel and Lydia (Thurley) Wells, was born in Ipswich, in 1669. He was like his father and grandfather a farmer and man of prominence in the town. His wife Mary bore him seven children, and the third being their first son they named him Nathan-
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iel. Their two other sons were Moses, born in 1701, married Eunice Kinsman, and Daniel, born in 1709, married Sarah
(IV) Nathaniel Wells, the eldest son of Nathaniel and Mary Wells, was born in Ips- wich, April 24, 1699. He married Sarah Kins- man and had twelve children, of whom John was the twelfth. Their other sons were Nath- aniel, the seventh child, and Simon, the tenth. (V) John Wells, the youngest child of Nathaniel and Sarah (Kinsman) Wells, was baptized May 2, 1748, in the first meeting house in the South Parish of Ipswich, on the first Sunday in which service was held in the church, he being the first child baptized in the new building.
(VI) Gideon Parker Wells, son of John Wells, of Ipswich, was born in Ipswich, Sep- tember II, 1780, and married Susanna, daugh- ter of Thaddeus Wellington, born April 5, 1758, a minuteman at the Lexington Alarm in 1775 ; granddaughter of Thomas Wellington, Jr., born in 1714, who married and reared twelve sons; great-granddaughter of Thomas Wellington, born November 10, 1686; great- great-granddaughter of Joseph Wellington, born 1656; great-great-great-granddaughter of Roger Wellington, the immigrant, born in England in 1610, settled in Watertown, Massa- chusetts Bay Colony. He was an original lessee of a stall in the new Quincy Market, Boston.
(VII) Henry Jackson Wells, son of Gideon Parker and Susanna (Wellington) Wells, was educated in the public schools of Charlestown, in which city he was born November 16, 1823, the seventh in descent from Thomas Wells, the immigrant. He was a clerk in Boston and vicinity in mercantile houses up to 1848, when he went south in the same line of business. His experience in New Orleans as a mer- chant's clerk did not meet his ideas of a suc- cessful career, which was the aim of his am- bition, and he remained but seven months in the south; he then returned to Boston and in the autumn of 1849 joined the procession of fortune seekers who had turned their faces toward the gold fields of California, which Eldorado he reached by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and after the experience of two long voyages by sea and the extraordinary dangers of crossing the Isthmus on foot to escape the epidemic of Chargres fever, then raging on the coasts, he landed in San Fran- cisco in December, 1849. His fortune on the journey thither was the companionship of the Hon. Stephen J. Field, and this acquaintance- ship secured him a clerkship in the court of
first instance, long established by the Spanish civil government, and handed down to the ter- ritorial governments for the ancient system of administering justice so long in existence in the Spanish colonies of America. In April, 1850, on the establishment of the new state of California, and the election of state officers, in part of the successive steps of which organi- zation Mr. Wells not only was a witness but an actor, he was continued in the office he held under the Spanish administration and was now known as assistant clerk of the state district court, which subsequently expanded into the California superior court. He used his leisure time in mastering both the English and Span- ish law and was admitted to the bar of the supreme court of California in 1853, and im- mediately afterward his sign as an attorney and counsellor at law appeared on the door of the chief building occupied by the leading law- yers of the city. He was the same year elected a member of the newly organized board of education, being one of two civilians of the state placed upon the board. When the city government was reorganized he was made a member of the board of assistant aldermen, an organization corresponding to the common council of eastern cities, and he served as president of the board for the years 1855-56. His position in the city government made him a member of the police commission, and his duties in this position called out his best efforts in behalf of the peaceable conduct of the homo- geneous but not always order-loving citizens of a newly organized community made up of different nationalities each intent on advancing selfish interests. In 1856, on the organization of the Republican national party, he was largely instrumental in organizing the party in California. He continued the practice of law in San Francisco up to 1863, when he left the bar for the bench, having been elected judge of the justice's court of the second township of the city, and he held this unique position of being the only Republican named on the ticket. of that party and known as the Union ticket to secure election. After serving on the bench for two years he retired with as high a reputa- tion as a judge as he had before gained as a learned lawyer. He served as chairman of the Republican city and county committees of San Francisco 1861-65. While a citizen of San Francisco he was one of the founders of the Young Men's Christian Association in that city, and he served as president of the associa- tion for one year. He was an early member and clerk of the First Baptist Church in San Fran- cisco, and attained a position in the community
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as a leading jurist, lawyer, and layman in church and benevolent work. In 1866 he re- turned to Massachusetts and took up the prac- tice of law in the courts of Middlesex county, making his home in Arlington. He was for ten years a member of the school committee of that town, and for many years chairman of the Re- publican town committee. He projected and carried forward many needed reforms in the town government, including the introduction of an adequate water supply, which proved to be one of the greatest boons to the inhabitants, as well as a powerful auxiliary to the growth of the town. He was admitted to practice in the United States supreme court in 1867, and to the bar of the Suffolk county courts on May 30, 1871. In him the members of the Suffolk bar found a brother lawyer of whom they became justly proud and a man and com- panion with whom they delighted to associate. His clientage attested his ability, and his superior wisdom and thorough knowledge of the law and its application placed him at the head of the profession with a goodly number of equals but no superior. By reason of length of service he is now dean of the Suffolk bar. In 1877 he removed his place of residence from Arlington to Cambridge, and at once be- came a leader in the shaping of the affairs of that city as well as in protecting the interests of the municipality in the general court of the Commonwealth. He represented Cambridge in the house of representatives of the state legislature in 1880-81-82, and besides a place on many important committees was chairman of the committee on probate and chancery in 1881-82. When he took his seat in the state senate in 1883 he was placed at the head of the committee on probate and chancery, and in the senate of 1885 was again chairman of that committee and of the committee on water sup -. ply, and here his experience in the same line of the town of Arlington gave to the Common- wealth the benefits of knowledge attained by actual work successfully accomplished. He was recognized as an authority on parliamen- tary law and usage, and his advice was sought and freely given to presiding officers less fami- liar with the proceedings of deliberative bodies. He was chairman of the Republican city com- mittees for a term of years, and a member of the Republican state committee for eleven suc- cessive years and its treasurer for seven years. He was elected presidential elector on the Re- publican national ticket in 1888, and on the meeting of the Electoral College in 1889 he, as secretary of the Massachusetts electors, cast the vote of the state for Benjamin Harrison
for president and Levi P. Morton for vice- president of the United States. His club affilia- tions includes membership in the Massachu- setts Republican Club, the Middlesex Club, the Cambridge Club, the Society of California Pioneers of San Francisco, the California Pioneers of New England, of which organiza- tion he was president in 1894-95, and of the Training Field School Association, of which he was president in 1897-98. He has been a member of the First Baptist Church, Beacon street and Commonwealth avenue, Boston, since 1866.
Judge Wells was married in Boston, No- vember, 1856, to Maria Adelaide, daughter of Lyman and Rebecca D. (Flagg) Goodnow. To carry out this consummation of an engage- ment of several years standing, he made the journey from California to Boston and re- turned with his bride to San Francisco by way of the Isthmus of Panama, that being the only route except the tedious and uncomfortable one across the plains by stage coach. The first ten years of his wedded life were spent in San Francisco, and at the end of that time they journeyed to the scenes of their old home by the more modern methods of travel that obtained in 1866. The children of Judge Henry Jackson and Maria Adelaide (Good- now) Wells are: I. Harrison Goodnow, of Chicago, married Edith Andrews, of Boston; one child, Catherine. 2. Sophia Adelaide, widow of Frank J. Cross, who was one of the largest cattle breeders in Nebraska, resid- ing in that state; one child, Jean Adelaide, now a student at Wellesley College. 3. Mary Rebecca, wife of Edwin P. Stickney, M. D., graduate of Harvard, class of 1892; resides at Arlington, Massachusetts; two children, Adelaide and Rebecca. 4. Henrietta Jackson, wife of Arthur J. Livermore, a member of the New York bar; two children: Henry Wells and Russell Blake. 5. Wellington Wells, see forward.
Wellington Wells, son of Judge Henry Jack- son and Maria Adelaide (Goodnow) Wells, was born in Arlington, Massachusetts, April 18, 1868. He is a Harvard graduate, and while a student was captain of the class crew, played with the football and lacrosse teams. He began the practice of law in 1893, and had offices in Boston, with William B. Durant, of Cambridge, and Mayor John E. Farnum, of Malden. For seven years he was assistant clerk in the superior court of Suffolk county, and during a portion of this period had charge of the equity session. Owing to his large ex- perience his services have been freely sought
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as auditor and master, and he has been ap- pointed receiver of various large concerns. He is active in both civil and military affairs. He has served as treasurer of the Library Hall Association of Cambridge, has been president of the Economy Club of Cambridge, is a mem- ber of the Country Club of Brookline, the Colonial Club of Cambridge, and the Boston Athletic Association. He is a Republican in politics, and was one of the organizers of the Young Men's Republican Club of Cambridge. He is affiliated with St. Andrew's Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, of Boston. He was a member of the First Corps of Cadets, and is now major and judge advocate on the general staff of the National Guard of the state of Massachusetts. He married Grace Elizabeth, daughter of William D. Ewart, a prominent manufacturer of Chicago, Illinois, and in- ventor of the Ewart link belt chain. She died July 14, 1902, leaving a daughter, Elizabeth Dana. Mr. Wells married (second) Eliza- beth, daughter of David J. Brewer, associate justice of the supreme court of the United States, and of this union has been born one child, Henrietta.
ALLEN Samuel Allen, the immigrant an- cestor, came to New England from Braintree, county Essex, England. He was born about 1588; settled first in Cambridge, Massachusetts, afterwards in Windsor and Hartford, Connecticut. He was a brother of Colonel Matthew Allen or Allyn, of Cambridge, afterwards of Windsor and Hartford, Connecticut, and of Deacon Thomas Allen, of Windsor. He was a jury- man March 5, 1644, and was by occupation a farmer. He was granted a house lot at Wind- sor, January 27, 1640, on the Farmington river, adjoining lots of Roger Ludlow, Thomas Marshall; also a meadow lot and two other out-lying lots. He was a man of public spirit and held various public offices. He died at Windsor and was buried April 28, 1648, aged sixty, leaving a widow and six children. His widow Ann removed to Northampton, Massa- chusetts, and married (second) William Hurl- but. She died there November 13, 1687. Children : 1. Samuel, born 1634, married, No- vember 29, 1659, Hannah Woodford. 2. Nehemiah, mentioned below. 3. John, mar- ried, December 8, 1669, Mary Hannum, born April 5, 1650. 4. Rebecca. 5. Mary.
(II) Nehemiah Allen, son of Samuel Allen (1). was born about 1640. Married, Septem- ber 21, 1664, Sarah Woodford,' daughter of
Thomas and Mary (Blott) Woodford. She was born in Hartford, Connecticut, September 2, 1649, and died in Northampton, Massachu- setts, March 31, 1712-13. He died in North- ampton, 1684. She married (second) in Northampton, September 1, 1687, Richard Burk, and (third), July 11, 1706, Judah Wright. Children of Nehemiah Allen: I. Samuel, born January 3, 1665-66, barber, men- tioned below. 2. Nehemiah, born October 18, 1667, died young. 3. Nehemiah, born No- vember 6, 1669, married Ruth Burt, daughter of David. 4. Sarah, born August 22, 1672, married, 1694, Joseph Strong. 5. Thomas, born January 17, 1675. 6. Hannah, baptized May 6, 1677. 7. Ruth, born June 4, 1680, married Josiah Leonard. 8. Child, born Aug- ust 12, 1683, died young. 9. Silence, born August, 1684.
(III) Samuel Allen, son of Nehemiah Allen (2), was born January 3, 1665-66. In 1705 he bought the Dr. Willard lot which he sold in 17II to Samuel Bernard, and he sold the Quartus Hawks homestead in Wapping to Eleazer Hawks in 1713, and soon afterward removed to Coventry, Connecticut. He died before 1727. He married Mercy Wright, daughter of Judah. She died in Litchfield, Connecticut, February 5, 1728, aged fifty-nine. Children : I. Nehemiah, born September 21, 1693, at Northampton, died young. 2. Mercy, born June 24, 1695. 3. Nehemiah, born Sep- tember 19, 1697, probably settled in Guilford, Connecticut. 4. Mary, born October 22, 1699. 5. Hester, born February 26, 1704, died at Deerfield, November 27, 1706. 6. Hester, died at Deerfield, December 18, 1707. 7. Joseph, born October 14, 1708, at Deerfield, removed to Cornwall, Connecticut, about 1740, and died there April 4, 1755; married, March . 6, 1736-37, Mary Baker, daughter of John; their eldest child was the noted General Ethan Allen of Revolutionary fame, born at Litch- field, Connecticut (or Woodbury), January 10, 1737-38; settled in Vermont with several of his brothers. 8. Daniel, of Litchfield. 9. Ebenezer, born April 26, 1711, mentioned be- low. 10. Lydia, married Benjamin Smalley, of Lebanon, New Hampshire. II. Lucy.
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