This week we tell the story of an early local Brattleborough resident who was described by the United States Congress as a “perfidious man”. In 1730 Samuel Wells was born in Deerfield, Massachusetts. That’s about 25 miles south of here. He was a tavern keeper in Deerfield and also served in the Massachusetts militia during the French and Indian War. Like many war veterans, as the conflict was winding down, Wells decided to move into the northern frontier territory that had recently been part of the war between the Abenaki, French and British.
In 1762 British colonists began to build homes and successfully claim land north of Fort Dummer. Both British colonies, New York and New Hampshire, claimed the area. The Abenaki had been fighting to remain on the land for at least 100 years but, with the end of the war, their French allies withdrew from the region and the Abenaki found it more challenging to maintain their way of life.
Wells moved his family onto an 800 acre land parcel that is located west of the present Brattleboro Retreat complex. Initially he built a little log cabin to raise his family. He and his wife eventually had 13 children, 2 who died in infancy. In 1773 he built a larger house on what is now Upper Dummerston Road, a bit north of Cold Springs. At the time, the road ended at his house.
Wells operated a farm and owned the first lumber mill on the Whetstone Brook. In 1762, when Wells moved his family here, property claims were a jumbled mess. New York and New Hampshire land claims were in conflict with one another so, in 1764, the King of Great Britain ruled that the disputed land would be a recognized part of the New York colony. Many colonists had bought claims from New Hampshire and were worried that they no longer had legal title to Brattleborough land.
In 1765 Samuel Wells led a group of men on a trip to Albany, New York in order to establish clear land titles. Twenty one men who had claimed ownership with New Hampshire titles were in pursuit of fresh New York titles for their land. Wells offered a few well-placed New York officials “free land” in Brattleborough in exchange for New York land claims for his friends. Some might call this strategic political maneuvering, others might call it bribery. Wells was successful, new land grants were made, and Wells soon became the largest land owner in Brattleborough.
Within a year Samuel Wells was also appointed to New York government positions. He served as a judge and justice of the peace in Brattleborough, a part of New York’s Cumberland County. He also appointed local government officials and served as a representative in New York’s legislative assembly.
As the years went on, most of the powerful landowners in Brattleborough sided with New York’s claims to this land, while towns on the west side of the Green Mountains argued to retain New Hampshire Grant status. In 1774 Wells helped the New York Assembly draft the “Bloody Acts”. This legislation offered a reward to anyone who would kill or capture leaders of the Green Mountain Boys. The Green Mountain Boys were a local southwestern militia who were opposed to New York rule.
When the Revolutionary War broke out Wells remained loyal to Great Britain. In 1775 he was accused of attempting to smuggle weapons into Cumberland County in order to supply Loyalists on both sides of the Connecticut River. During parts of 1776 and 1777 he was confined to his farm by the local Committee of Safety and, according to Mary Cabot’s Brattleboro history, “for a long time, permission was granted to shoot him, should he be found beyond the bounds of his acres.”
After the 1777 Battle of Saratoga much of the Revolutionary War took place south of here. Restrictions placed upon Wells were loosened and he became an active spy for Great Britain. British spies transported Information about the war effort from New York City to Canada. Samuel Wells was part of this spy network.
In 1779 Hinsdale, New Hampshire’s David Gray was a soldier in the Massachusetts Army. He was familiar with British Loyalists who lived in the area and George Washington was made aware of his connections. Gray was asked to become a “double agent” by pretending to work for the British spy network. He pretended to be a deserter from the American army and was hired by a Loyalist in New York City to carry messages back and forth from the Loyalist organization in NYC to the Canadian British. Gray would carry the British intelligence messages but would share them with General Washington’s staff as well. This allowed Washington to know what the British were planning in the northern colonies.
Brattleborough was on Gray’s route between NYC and Canada. In the book, George Washington’s Secret Spy War, published in 2016, Gray is described as was one of two couriers employed by the British Loyalists to travel to Samuel Wells in Brattleboro, Vermont. Samuel Wells is characterized as “a resident British spy feeding information both to Canada and New York City”. For almost three years Gray visited Wells and pretended to be a spy for the British. As a result, the United States knew Wells was a major part of the British spy network.
In 1782 the United States Congress issued an arrest warrant for Samuel Wells. Christopher Osgood was a courier for a British spy network and he had been captured and confessed to working with Wells. Osgood was a Brattleborough carpenter and was caught delivering British intelligence to Loyalists in Providence, Rhode Island. Osgood gave testimony that he was carrying information from Samuel Wells and other Loyalists who were conspiring to help finance and feed the Loyalist troops in New England and New York.
Upon further questioning, Osgood also shared that he was carrying letters from the British Governor of Quebec. He was supposed to deliver that information to New York City Loyalists. Those letters had first arrived in Brattleborough from Canadian couriers. Osgood testified that Samuel Wells was one of the Loyalists in Brattleborough who paid him and coordinated the spy network.
When soldiers arrived in Brattleborough to arrest Wells he was no longer in town. It seems a Congressman from Rhode Island sent word to Wells that he should leave quickly in order to avoid prison. Wells traveled to New York and stayed with other Loyalists until the war ended.
In March, 1783 Alexander Hamilton wrote to George Washington about Samuel Wells and explained how he had avoided arrest. Hamilton called this “a very confidential subject” and told Washington that he had another plan for capturing Wells. When Congress issued the arrest warrant for Samuel Wells he was called a “perfidious man”. Perfidious means deceitful and untrustworthy.
Despite Hamilton’s assurances to Washington, Samuel Wells was not taken into custody. After the war he returned to Brattleborough, but his life had forever changed. In 1766 Samuel Wells was the richest man in town. By 1786, the year he died, Wells was insolvent and owed his creditors almost $100,000 in today’s currency. Wells’ loyalty to the British Crown had been very costly. By the early 1800’s all of his offspring had moved to Canada because the British offered his descendants “free land” for their father’s loyalty during the Revolution.
Research for this story comes from a Historical Society newsletter article written by Lee Ha, and Brattleboro Area Middle School students.