OBITUARIES, AMERICAN. (WASHINGTON WELLS.) 



577 



ther Tales"; ''Recollections of Revolutionary 

 infes"; and "A Midsummer Night's Dream." 

 Washington, Ella liassHI. author, born in 

 anover County, Va., in 1889 ; died in New York 

 ity, Jan. 17, 1898. She was a descendant of George 

 "ashington's family ; was the daughter of George 

 'ashington Bassett, and the wife of Col. Lewis 

 William Washington, of West Virginia. During 

 the civil war she lived near Richmond. Among 

 notable acts of courage which she performed was 

 he capture of a Federal officer, for which she was 

 oted a gold medal by the Confederate Congress, 

 "rs. Washington was a member of the Ladies' 

 ount Yernon Association, the Society of Colonial 

 >ames of Virginia, and the Daughters of the Revo- 

 ition of New York. She was a frequent contrib- 

 tor to magazines, and some of her poems, notably 

 The Song of the Sea " and " The Ruined Castle," 

 ere widely published. 



Waterman. Thomas Whitney, lawyer, born in 

 inghamton, N. Y., June 28, 1821 ; died there, Dec. 

 1898. He studied at Yale College ; was admitted 

 the bar of New York in 1848, and till 1870 prac- 

 ed his profession in New York city, when he re- 

 ved to Binghamton. Besides editing a large 

 lumber of legal works he was the author of the fol- 

 ding books : " Treatise on the Civil Jurisdiction 

 Justices of the Peace" (1849); a substantially 

 w edition of the "American Chancery Digest," 

 ith very full notes, known as the " Third Edition " 

 851) ; " Treatise on the Civil and Criminal Juris- 

 rudence of Justices for Wisconsin and Iowa" 

 853) ; " Treatise on the Principles of Law and 

 jiity in the Granting of New Trials in Cases Civil 

 d Criminal " (1855) ; " Digest of the Reported 

 ecisions of the Superior Court and of the Supreme 

 iirt of Errors of Connecticut " (1858) ; " Treatise 

 the Law of Set Off, Recoupment, and Counter 

 aims " (1869) ; " Treatise on the Law of Trespass" 

 (1875) ; " Digest of Decisions in Criminal Cases " 

 (1878) ; " Treatise on the Specific Performance of 

 Contracts " (1881) ; " Treatise on the Law of Corpo- 

 rations Other than Municipal " (1888). 



Weeks, Robert Dodd, educator, born in Clin- 

 ton, N. Y., April 4, 1819 ; died in East Orange, 

 N. J., Feb. 23, 1898. He learned the printers' trade, 

 worked for a time as a compositor, and then assisted 

 in his father's school, continuing his studies and 

 acquiring a liberal English and classical education. 

 He taught a public school in Newark, N. J., from 

 1846 till 1851 ; was Professor of English Literature 

 and Farm Economy in the Michigan State Agricul- 

 tural College till the autumn of 1857, and afterward 

 was employed in the office of the Auditor General 

 of Michigan. In February, 1860. he became a clerk 

 in the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company of 

 Newark, where he continued till his death. He 

 published " Jehovah Jesus " (1876) : " Genealogy of 

 the Family of George Weekes " (1885) ; and " The 

 New Dispensation " (1898). 



Wells, David Ames, political economist and 

 publicist, born in Springfield, Mass.. June 17, 1828: 

 died in Norwich, Conn., Nov. 5, 1898. He was a 

 lineal descendant on his father's side of Thomas 

 Welles, Governor of the colony of Connecticut in 

 1655-'58, and on his mother's side of David Ames, 

 who, under Washington, established and built the 

 national armory at Springfield. Mr. Wells was 

 graduated at Williams College in 1847, and shortly 

 afterward became assistant editor, with Samuel 

 Bowles, of the Springfield " Republican." During 

 this period he was associated in the invention of a 

 mechanism for folding newspapers and books by 

 machinery in connection with power-printing 

 presses. The first of these machines successfully 

 rated was built at his expense and worked 

 hder his direction in the office of the Springfield 

 VOL. xxxvin. 37 A 



"Republican." Through the sale of his interest in 

 the invention he was enabled to enter, in 1849, the 

 Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University. 

 Besides taking the regular course, from which he 

 was graduated with the first class in 1851-'52, he 

 was a special pupil of Prof. Agassiz, who had then 

 but recently arrived in this country. Immediately 

 after his graduation he received the appointmeni 

 of assistant professor in the Scientific School, and 

 also that of lec- 

 turer on physios 

 and chemistry in 

 Groton Academy. 

 Massachusetts. In 

 1849, while at Cam- 

 bridge, he began, 

 in association with 

 George Bliss, the 

 publication of an 

 annual report on 

 the progress of sci- 

 ence and the useful 

 arts, which, under 

 the title " The An- 

 nual of Scientific 

 Discovery, " was 

 continued many 

 years. During the 

 next ten years Mr. 

 Wells was occupied chiefly with his teaching and 

 the preparation of a series of scientific schoolbooks 

 which at one time had an extensive circulation. Two 

 of the series were soon translated into the Chinese 

 language, and an elementary treatise on chemistry 

 was adopted as a text-book at West Point. The first 

 public appreciation of Mr. Wells as an economist was 

 through an essay of his read before a literary society 

 of Troy, N. Y., in 1864. This was entitled " Our Bur- 

 den and our Strength," and discussed the resources 

 and debt-paying ability of the United States. The 

 enormous debt and great load of taxation, with 

 which the civil war was burdening the nation had 

 shaken public confidence, both at home and abroad, 

 in the ability of the country to recover. This essay 

 was the means of bringing Mr. Wells to the notice 

 of President Lincoln, who, much impressed by it, 

 sent for the author to come to Washington and 

 confer with him and the Secretary of the Treasury. 

 Mr. Fessenden, on the best methods of dealing with 

 the finances of the country. One result of this 

 conference was the passage by Congress in March, 



1865, of a bill creating a commission of three per- 

 sons for the purpose of inquiring into and reporting 

 " on the subject of raising by taxation such revenue 

 as may be necessary in order to supply the wants 

 of the Government,'' etc. Mr. Wells was the chair- 

 man of this committee : and its work, which was 

 practically Mr. Wells's work, formed the first system- 

 atic attempt in the United States to gather and 

 use national statistics for national purposes. Ou 

 the termination of the Revenue Commission in 



1866, Mr. Wells was immediately appointed for a 

 term of four years to an office created for him 

 under the title of " special commissioner of the 

 revenue." The first work that claimed his at- 

 tention was a reconstruction and repealing of 

 the system of excessive taxation which had been 

 found necessary during and immediately after the 

 war. Under his initiation and supervision were 

 originated nearly all the forms of importance in 

 our national revenue system, internal and customs, 

 that were adopted by Congress between the close 

 of the war and 1870 the redrafting of the whole 

 system of revenue laws, the reduction and final 

 abolition of the cotton tax and the taxes on manu- 

 factured and crude petroleum, the creation of 

 supervisory districts and the appointment of super- 



