William Vincent Wells (1826–1876) was an American author and journalist, best known for his three volume biography of his ancestor Samuel Adams, the 4th Governor of the state of Massachusetts.
William Wells grew up in Boston where he was educated "at the common schools of that city,"[3] but in 1834, his father left home to join the Navy, serving aboard the frigate USS Potomac as schoolmaster, and serving, from December 1836 until July 1838, aboard the USS Constitution as private secretary to Commodore Jesse Elliott, Commander of the Navy's Mediterranean Squadron.
"[6] Writing in 1876, the author of Wells's obituary noted: "He started out from Boston at an early age to follow the sea, and before he had reached his majority found himself Second Mate of a Boston ship in the European trade, which position gave him opportunities, when in European ports, of visiting Art Galleries and other objects calculated to improve the mind and cultivate the taste.
[10] But rather than becoming a sea-captain, in October 1853, Wells became a part owner with his brother-in-law James Davenport Whelpley of the San Francisco newspaper the Commercial Advertiser.
[14] Meanwhile, in May 1855, American mercenary William Walker (1824–1860) led a force of 110 men on a private expedition to Central America with the intention of forcibly establishing a colony based on slave labor in Nicaragua.
Accompanied by an armed party of fifty men, Whelpley went to Honduras to protect what he could of his investments there, but was detained by force by Walker for nearly a year, and impressed into service as a surgeon and physician.
The younger Wells described his intent in writing the book in its introduction: …to represent him as he appeared to those who personally knew him, — friends and enemies, — to show the great space he filled in the Revolution, and to disclose, by means of his own private letters and trustworthy contemporary evidence, the measures by which he so largely aided in accomplishing American liberty.
Wells acted as Clerk for several months for Alvord's successor, Mayor James Otis, "but by this time, his health had so essentially failed that it was unequal to the duties and responsibilities of the position."
The author of Wells's memorial in the Daily Alta, writing after "more than a quarter of a century's intimate acquaintance and intimate friendship," recalled his, "...high appreciation of [Wells's] mental capacities, his indomitable energy, his wonderful activity of mind and body, until disease which had silently and unsuspected made its attack, developed suddenly in a form which defied all human skill.
Mrs. Wells will certainly be pleasantly remembered by many of our readers as Laura Jones, a soprano singer of far above average merit, who sang for many years in church and concert in this city.