Weld was an abstemious young man who claimed: I did not touch a drop of wine or liquor all through my college career until about a month before I graduated, nor did I smoke until then.

[5] Weld was a first-year student at Harvard Law School when the war broke out and he was eager to join the action.

Although Weld soon distinguished himself in this war which put an end to slavery in the United States, he was no abolitionist and had: little liking for those he considered antislavery zealots...when abolitionist Senator Charles Sumner made an appearance at the Harvard class day exercises in 1860, Weld was a member of the graduating class that booed and hissed him.

Like most conservative upper-class New Englanders, Weld disliked slavery, but he had no special sympathy for the sufferings of blacks; he felt that, if left alone, the South's "peculiar institution" would die out of its own accord.

[6] Thus it seems that Weld viewed the Union cause as primarily one of putting down Southern rebellion, rather than emancipating enslaved African-Americans, at least initially.

Weld had a great interest in botany and became president of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 1906; he also helped Charles Sprague Sargent build the collection at the Arnold Arboretum.

Outcrops, boulders, woodlands, and ponds dotted the surrounding property, offering endless opportunities to satisfy Weld's passion for horticulture.

Endicott maintained and expanded the gardens, but razed Rockweld to build a Normandy French-style chateau designed by Charles Platt.

In his later years, Weld spent much of his time at the family compound he established near Cape Cod at Indian Neck, a spot which commands a majestic view of Bourne Cove and the Atlantic Ocean.

A transitional figure between the nineteenth century and the modern era, Weld also acquired hundreds of acres along the shores of Buzzards Bay and transferred lots to friends at cost.

[13] Descendants of "the General" still own a cluster of six separate houses at the family compound in Wareham, although in recent decades a preponderance of female offspring has made the Weld surname rare among them.

Eight-year-old Lothrop Motley Weld drowned in the channel at Bourne Cove in Wareham a year after the family purchased their property there.

A granddaughter, Eloise Rodman Weld (1911–2001), married firstly Wiliam Lukens Elkins III, a grandson of William Lukens Elkins, secondly William Thomas Fleming Jr., and thirdly, Arthur Osgood Choate Jr., a grandson of George Cheyne Shattuck Choate.