Samuel Thomas Wellman, (February 5, 1847 – July 11, 1919) was an American steel industry pioneer, industrialist, and prolific inventor.

[1] Wellman was a close friend of electrical pioneer George Westinghouse,[2] and he was also president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers from 1901 to 1902.

[5] In 1869, Wellman built the first commercially successful open-hearth furnace in America at the Bay State Iron Works in South Boston.

In addition to improvements on the Hulett unloader, other important inventions include an open hearth charging machine and a hydraulic crane.

Following an unsuccessful venture with his half-brother, Wellman later founded the Wellman-Seaver-Morgan Engineering Company [fr] in Cleveland, Ohio,[8] which continues under a different name to this day.