Events for Nov 27
1782
At a secret session, the United States Congress ordered the arrest of Col. Samuel Wells forcing him to flee Brattleboro.
Seems that Colonel Wells, an early developer of Brattleboro and a loyalist to the King, had to escape to Canada during the Revolutionary War.
________________________________________
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Wells-4224
Biography
Samuel Wells was born 9 September 1730 in Deerfield, Massachusetts[1]. He was registered as the son of Ensign Jonathan Wells and his wife Mary.
On 20 May 1751, aged 20, he married Hannah Sheldon in Deerfield[2]. They had ten children together. Their eldest child, Rebecca was born the following year.
Like his father and grandfather before him, Samuel was clearly active in the Massachusetts Militia and presumably reached his high rank during the French and Indian War. He may well have been with the Massachusetts forces at the Battle of Ticonderoga in 1759 which drove the French out of the English colonies.
In July 1762 Samuel was one of the early settlers in the Brattleboro region in what would become southern Vermont[3], towards the end of the war. Brattleboro lies 25 miles north of Deerfield along the Connecticut River. The family can be tracked in the birth registries of their children, the first seven were born and registered in Deerfield. Robert, the eighth was baptised there in June of 1763 but his birth date was not recorded, he may well have been born in their new home. Calista and Richard were both born in Brattleboro and have no records back in Deerfield. There may have been two further daughters born in Brattleboro[3].
We know the location of his cabin and barn from a map drawn up in 1774 by the Surveyor General for North America, Samuel Holland.
1774 Map showing the Wells House location
It is worth noting that the road ends at Col Wells house at that time. The farm was approximately where the Retreat buildings west of Linden St now stand.
Vermont before the Revolutionary War was a competing mass of land claims, some issued by New Hampshire, some by New York. Col. Wells received the right to the Brattleboro area from New York. He parcelled the land into 100 acre units and sold these to new arrivals[4]. As well as being a colonel in the militia he was the first judge in the new town[3].
He owned the first mill in the area and was acquitted of taking trees suitable for the King’s Navy[5].
From 1773 until the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, Samuel was the Representative for Cumberland County, of which Brattleboro was the county town at the colonial assembly for New York Province[6][3].
He remained a staunch loyalist throughout the conflict[7]. However the failure of the loyalist cause left him deeply insolvent. He never acknowledged the new government and lived quietly in retirement until his death, aged just 55, on 6 August 1786[7].
He was buried with a marble head-stone in the old burying-ground which gives the following information[6][3]:
“In Memory of
COL. SAMUEL WELLS,
of this town, a Judge of Cumberland County Court, and a Member
of the Assembly of the Province of New York,
who departed this life
Aug. 6, 1786, in his 55th year.
His friends, the stranger and the poor have lost
A kind companion and a generous host:
When he fell, the Statesman fell
And left the world his worth to tell.
Between the years 1798 and 1802, all the family of Col. Wells removed to Canada, where each of his children received from the crown 1200 acres of land as a compensation for the losses Col. Wells had suffered during the Revolution on account of his adherence to the King[3][7].
