Wells was a practical surveyor and assisted Judge Geddes in the survey for the Oswego Canal.
He was prominent in the militia, in which he was captain at the time Sackett's Harbor, New York, was threatened by the British, and led his company to that point.
On May 3, 1834, Wells was one of the founders of the first Disciples of Christ church in Pompey, and became one of its first elders.
[2] In the 1817 race, he was once again the least successful of the four "Old Line" Democratic-Republican winners, coming out ahead of former Assemblyman Jonathan Stanley, Jr. running as a "Clintonian" or "New Line" candidate, with 1,380 vote to Stanley's 724.
[3] He was a candidate in the 1822 United States House of Representatives elections in New York for the 23rd Congressional District.