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01. Thomas Wells was born in 1653 in
England. Thomas Wells was transported to Maryland in 1679 when
he purchased land in Prince George's Co., he was called a planter and was
living in Calvert County. Some time around 1696 he was a member of the Grand
jury regarding the petition of Philip Clarke and his subsequent disbarment.
He died in 1718 at the Herring Creek Hundred, Prince George's Co.
Thomas married Frances Smith in Maryland in
1678.
02. Joseph Wells, son of Thomas and Frances was
born on Sept. 30, 1697 in Saint Barnabas Church, Queen Anne Parish, Prince
George, Maryland. On April 11, 1721 he married
Margaret Swanson, daughter of Francis Swanson and Susannah Plummer.
Joseph and his wife came from Chester County in Pennsylvania. He was
living in Anne Arundel Co., Md. on Dec. 8, 1726. He paid taxes on the
Mattapony Hundred of Prince George's Co. by 1742. His name is on a petition
that sought the establishment of All Saints Parish from Prince George's Co.
He bought land named "Boyling Springs", which was forty acres surveyed June
12, 1743. Its beginning point was also on a north side branch of the
Tuscarora. This land was later conveyed to Baltis Fout. In November of that
year, he was made constable of the Monocacy Hundred. His wife Margaret was
received in membership on November 29, 1745 and he on February 29, 1746.
Both Joseph and Isaac Wells signed the October petition seeking to carve All
Saints' Parish out of Prince George's Parish. They removed to North
Carolina around 1750 after they sold "Boyling Spring", on Tuscarora Creek
near the mouth of the Monoquesey. Joseph gave his son Joseph 269 acres of
land in Orange County, N.C. on June 13, 1752. He sold another 137.5 acres of
land to John Marshall in Sept. 1752. In that same year, Margaret stops
appearing in Quaker Records which her husband Joseph and some children are
in. This could suggest that she had passed on in 1752 or earlier.
03. Rachel Wells, daughter of Joseph and Margaret
was born on March 20, 1720 in All Lallows Parish, Anne Arundel, MA.
She married John Wright, son of James
Wright and Mary Bowater in abt. 1736. She was a fairly well noted
frontier Quaker minister before the American Revolution. She became a Quaker
when she married. Her parents moved into the faith several years after her
marriage. She came from radical Puritan and Catholic stock who sought
religious freedom in the tolerant Maryland under Lord Baltimore. Several of
her ancestors were of armorial families in England. Rachel and her
husband moved to Orange County, North Carolina from the Monocacy Meeting,
Prince George Co., Maryland about 1749. They helped found the Cane Creek
Meeting in Orange Co., North Carolina. She was the center of a major
controversy in this region during the movement known as the Regulators. She
apparently committed an offense. Her apology was accepted until she applied
to remove to Fredericksburg, SC in 1763. Some of the members doubted the
sincerity of her apology and thought her certificate should not be granted.
A principle, outspoken well known liberal Quaker of the time, Hermon
Husband, was caught up in the feud. Due to his violent reaction, he was
disowned in 1764. The ending to this story is not known b the Auther, other
than the fact that Rachel and her family did move to South Carolina in 1764.
The Cane Creek meeting back in North Carolina mentions her kindly at her
death on December 23, 1771, aged about 52 years as "a friend of the
Ministry, wife of John, one of the first beginnners of a meeting at Bush
River." I descend from John and Rachel's son
Nathan Wright who married Sarah Jay. |
