Arnold Welles (1727-1802)

He was born at Boston and graduated from Harvard (1745). In Boston, he became a merchant, trading in commodities and slaves, and was the owner of the Long Wharf. He was appointed a Justice of the Peace in 1759. During the Revolution, he firmly sided with the Patriots and while he might have been viewed as a smuggler by the British (his chief occupation was to "obtain foodstuffs for the town"), he enjoyed legal protection on account of his father being the judge of the court in which he might otherwise have been tried. From 1797 to 1802, he served as President of the Bank of the United States at Boston that was owned by his enterprising nephew, Samuel Welles. He bought a pair of building lots at 1 & 2 Park Street in Boston, selling the latter to Dr. John Warren (his daughter-in-law's uncle) for $8,000, and using the proceeds to construct his own home at No. 1. In 1760, he married Susannah, daughter of John Jones, Merchant of Bristol, England, and Dorchester, Massachusetts. They had three children.