William Shepard Wetmore (January 26, 1801 – June 16, 1862) was an American businessman and philanthropist who was an Old China Trade merchant.

He was a sixth-generation descendant of Thomas Whitmore, who immigrated to Boston in 1635 from the west coast of England and became one of the earliest settlers of the Connecticut Colony.

In 1815 Samuel and his brother William Willard Wetmore moved to Providence, Rhode Island, entering into a business partnership with the merchants Edward Carrington & Company.

[3] When William was fourteen years of age, he was hired aboard the ship Fame, bound for England, South America, and the East Indies.

[1] The company went on to be one of the largest mercantile houses in the East Indies despite the fact that Wetmore was opposed to the opium trade.

Peabody eventually enjoyed a huge success as a merchant banker in London and as a self-appointed American ambassador of the mercantile industry.

It was through family and business connections that William S. Wetmore began a lifelong friendship with the prominent financier Peabody.

[2] On October 24, 1837, William married his cousin, Esther Phillips Wetmore of Middletown, Connecticut, at Gloucester Lodge, Regent's Park, London.

[10] However, there is no mention of his wife, Anstiss, in a series of letters written between Annie, George, and their father, corresponding between Newport and New York City during the years 1856–1860.

[1] Upon William Wetmore's death on June 16, 1862, sixteen-year-old George and fourteen-year-old Annie were master and mistress of Chateau-sur-Mer.