*Thomas Wells (1693-1744) was born in Hatfield, Massachusetts, the second of six children born to Ebenezer and Mary (Waite) Wells. He purchased a home in nearby Northfield in 1721 where he lived briefly before settling permanently in Deerfield in 1724 on a homelot in the village center. He was a physician and a cordwainer (shoemaker) and according to an entry in Deerfield's Fourth Meetinghouse records, he was also a justice of the peace. He married Sarah Hawks in 1726 and they had eight children who lived to adulthood. (George Sheldon, History of Deerfield (Greenfield, MA: PVMA, 1896) Vol II, pp. 357-358.) Thomas Wells left a sizable estate when he died aged 51 in 1744 that included almost 1,000 acres of land in Deerfield and the surrounding region valued at over £3,000.
Thomas Wells enslaved Adam and Peter, whom he had baptized in 1734. That same year both men "confessed the Sin of fornication" (Records of the First Church of Deerfield, Massachusetts.) An entry in Joseph Barnard's account book in the archives of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association Library in Deerfield, Massachusetts, shows that Thomas rented out a man named Prince from Thomas Wells. In 1743, Barnard bought Wells's "Negro fellow", which probably referred to Prince, and soon after Thomas died in 1744, Sarah Wells rented Prince to dig her husband's grave. In 1745, Joseph Barnard balanced Sarah's account, giving her credit for Prince's bed and bedding.
*There are two men by the name of Thomas Wells in this database. The other is Thomas Wells (1678-1750), a cousin of this Thomas Wells (1693-1744.)
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