Weld Family
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The Weld Family is an extended family of Boston Brahmin most remembered for the philanthropy of its members. The Welds have many connections to Harvard University, the Golden Age of Sail, the Far East (especially Japan), the history of Massachusetts, and U.S. history in general.
William Weld, former Governor of Massachusetts, is the most prominent living member of this family. When Massachusetts Senate president Billy Bulger publicly teased William Weld about his ancestors' having come over on the Mayflower, Weld joked: "Actually, they weren't on the Mayflower. They sent the servants over first to get the cottage ready." [1]
Tuesday Weld, an Academy Award nominated actress, is another famous living family member. Many know of Tuesday Weld's film career and her role on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Far fewer realize that she is a member of one of New England's oldest and most famous families and third cousin once removed to William Weld.
[edit] Sheriff William Weld
One William Weld was sheriff of London, England in 1352. Although it is difficult to prove genealogical relationships that far back, evidence suggests that Sheriff Weld was related to the Welds that eventually came to North America.
[edit] Daniel Weld
The Weld family has a presence in Massachusetts dating back to the early 1600s and their relationship to one another is clearly recorded. In the first days of European settlement in the New World, three sons of Edmund Weld of Sudbury, Suffolk, England arrived in Boston. Daniel Weld, the eldest, became a teacher at Roxbury Latin School.
[edit] Thomas Weld
Thomas Weld, younger brother of Daniel, became minister of the First Church of Roxbury, assisted with the Bay Psalm Book, and became an overseer of the newly-founded Harvard College.
In 1641, he left most of his family in Massachusetts Bay Colony and returned to England on business for the General Court of Massachusetts. In England, Weld became a minister to Oliver Cromwell until his death.
Daniel's son remained in Boston and two notable Welds in New England traced their ancestry to him.
[edit] Capt. Joseph Weld
Capt. Joseph Weld, the youngest of the three Weld immigrants, is the ancestor from whom the richest and most famous Welds descend. As an award for his participation in the Pequot War of 1637 and subsequent negotiations, the colonial legislature granted Weld 278 acres in the town of Roxbury.
Capt. Weld's land is now much of present day Jamaica Plain. With the wealth generated from this grant, Joseph Weld became one of the first donors to Harvard and founded the Ancient and Honorable Military Company.
[edit] The Welds and Harvard
Thomas Weld's involvement with Harvard was the beginning of almost 400 years of association between that institution and the Weld Family.
Surprisingly, the first Weld to attend ended his Harvard career in disgrace. John Weld (born in 1625) and a classmate stole money and gunpowder from two houses and were caught. Henry Dunster (Harvard’s first president) personally whipped them and expelled them from the school. Weld returned to England and became a minister in Durham.
Edmund Weld (1631-1668), the first Weld to graduate Harvard (class of 1650) left Massachusetts Bay Colony as well. He became a minister in Ireland.
At least eighteen more Weld family members have graduated Harvard since then and two prominent buildings at Harvard University are named for the family.
[edit] Capt. John Weld
Capt. John Weld, son of Capt. Joseph Weld, inherited his estate and served as an officer in King Philip's War of 1675. He built his home, Weld Hall, on what came to be called Weld Hill in Forest Hills (still marked by the presence of Weld Hill Street across the street from Forest Hills MBTA station).
[edit] Weld and Williams Farms
The descendants of John Weld created Weld Farm towards the Brookline border around what is now Hancock Village but was formerly Weld Golf Course.
Other descendants of John Weld moved on to develop the valley of Sawmill Brook near Dedham as the Williams Farm. Part of the Weld properties in this area were sold in 1854 for the construction of what is now the VFW Parkway in West Roxbury.
While the Weld's Brookline and Dedham properties were developed in the 17th and 18th centuries as agricultural lands, in the 19th and 20th centuries these became Weld-owned estates of great luxury.
[edit] Col. Eleazer Weld
This first Weld Hall in Jamaica Plain was home to many generations of Welds, the last of which was Col. Eleazer Weld, one of seven Weld family members who fought in the American Revolutionary War. Weld Hill was selected by George Washington as a rallying point for the patriot army to fall back upon in case of disaster.[2]
[edit] Arnold Arboretum
After Eleazer Weld's death in 1800, much of his land went to fellow patriot Benjamin Bussey and was subsequently bequeathed to Harvard, becoming the basis for Arnold Arboretum.
Today, the "Weld-Walter tract" remains the name of one of the four parcels into which the arboretum is divided. On the Walter Street side of the Arboretum just above Weld Street is a tiny cemetery with eight slate tombstones dated between 1712 and 1812. Two of the Welds who fought in the Revolutionary War are buried here, marked by a later moment of Roxbury puddingstone.
Although some of the Weld land became the arboretum, the land which the Welds retained was more than enough to assure their prosperity in the 19th century.
[edit] William Gordon Weld
William Gordon Weld 1775-1825), Eleazer's fifth son, founded a fleet of trading vessels that brought more wealth back from China. He married Hannah Minot (1780-1860) and together they had one daughter and eight sons. One son was killed in Mexico, but the remaining sons sired 813 descendants (see chart).
[edit] William Fletcher Weld
William Fletcher Weld (1800-1881), son of William Gordon Weld, expanded his father's maritime enterprise into a world-class collection of clipper ships known as the Black Horse Flag fleet. He also invested in railroads and urban real estate, leaving behind a $20 million fortune for his descendants.
[edit] Stephen Minot Weld
Stephen Minot Weld (1806-1867), another son of William Gordon Weld, was a schoolmaster, real estate investor and politician. After his death, his elder brother (above) raised the Harvard dormitory known as Weld Hall in his honor.
[edit] George Walker Weld
George Walker Weld (1840-1905), a son of William Fletcher Weld, was a founding member of Boston Athletic Association (organizers of today's Boston Marathon) and the financier of the Weld Boathouse, a landmark on the Charles.
[edit] William Gordon Weld II
William Gordon Weld II, named for his grandfather, married a Goddard (a Massachusetts family represented by such members as Robert H. Goddard). He provided one record of his family's history in The Family of Weld (a manuscript at NEHGS).
His huge estate of Weld land in Brookline included a majestic carriage house he had designed by Edmund M. Wheelwright. Weld sold that building and a 26-acre parcel of his land to a cousin (described next). Hellenic College, situated on a wooded, 59-acre hill overlooking the Boston skyline, stands on another portion of his former estate.
[edit] Isabel Weld Perkins
Isabel Weld Perkins (1877-1948), daughter of Anna Minot Weld and Commodore George H. Perkins was another grandchild of William Gordon Weld and inherited $17 million dollars of his wealth. She married diplomat Larz Anderson (later Ambassador to Japan) and became an author. Isabel bought Brookline land from her cousin William Gordon Weld II and called the estate "Weld".
The Andersons' legacy to the public includes Anderson House, Anderson Memorial Bridge, Larz Anderson Auto Museum, Larz Anderson Bonsai Collection and Larz Anderson Park.
[edit] Humphrey Weld
In 1643, a wealthy Londoner named Humphrey Weld bought and restored Lulworth Castle, a fire-damaged "mock castle" in Dorset, England. It became his family's principal home and was remodeled on several occasions. Isabel Weld Perkins believed her Weld family and the Weld family of Lulworth Castle to be one and the same. Accordingly, she and Larz Anderson designed their Brookline home to resemble it.
[edit] Dr. Charles Goddard Weld
Charles Goddard Weld (1857-1911), son of William Fletcher Weld II, was a physician and philanthropist. He purchased Japanese art belonging to friend Ernest Fenollosa and donated it the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. The MFA now has the largest collection of Japanese art outside Japan, much of it in the "Fenollosa-Weld Collection." Weld also purchased prints by premier American photographer Edward S. Curtis and donated those to Peabody Essex Museum.
Dr Weld also owned Weld House, the office of the president of Boston University, as well as the adjoining Dunn House which now contains the office of the chancellor.
[edit] Gen. Stephen Minot Weld Jr.
Stephen Minot Weld Jr. (1842-1920), son of Stephen Minot Weld, served with distinction as a general during the American Civil War in such major conflicts, as the Second Battle of Bull Run, Antietam, and Gettysburg. His former estate in Dedham, known in his time as "Rockweld", is now home to the Endicott House conference facility owned by MIT.
[edit] Dr. Francis Minot Weld
Dr. Francis Minot Weld (1825-1826), yet another grandchild of William Gordon Weld, also served in the Civil War and then practiced medicine in Boston. He moved to New York City for a time but returned to Jamaica Plain before he died. One of Dr. Weld's sons, Christopher Minot Weld, was a renowned mining engineer.
[edit] Francis Minot Weld Jr.
Another of Dr. Weld's sons, Francis Minot Weld Jr,, founded the blue chip investment bank White Weld & Co. in the early 1900s. It was this Weld's grandson who became governor.
[edit] Gov. William Floyd Weld
As just noted, Gov. William Floyd Weld is the grandson of Francis Minot Weld Jr. After his grandfather's investment company was sold to the brokerage company G.H. Walker & Co. (named for George Herbert Walker, Jr., uncle of President George H. W. Bush), the future governor served as director of the Bush's company until it was bought by Merill Lynch in the 1970s.[3]
Weld's first wife, Susan Roosevelt Weld, Harvard professor specializing in Ancient China and later General Counsel to the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, is a great granddaughter of Theodore Roosevelt. They have five children together: David, Ethel, Mary, Quentin, and Frances.[4]
Weld's second and present wife, the writer and novelist Leslie Marshall, is a former daughter-in-law of Ben Bradlee of The Washington Post.
[edit] Lothrop Motley Weld II
Lothrop Motley Weld II was named after his uncle, a son of Gen. Stephen Minot Weld Jr. who drowned as a boy on Cape Cod. Lothrop Weld graduated from Harvard, served in World War I, and worked for S.M. Weld & Company, his grandfather's business. He later moved into the petroleum business and the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
Weld married four times and had five children. The oldest of these was Lothrop Motley Weld III. His youngest child, a daughter who grew up to be the most famous Weld in Hollywood, was only three years old when he died.
[edit] Tuesday Weld
Susan Ker Weld, known by her stage name Tuesday Weld, is the daughter of Lothrop Motley Weld II and the great-granddaughter of Gen. Stephen Minot Weld Jr..
Tuesday Weld debuted in an Alfred Hitchcock film, co-starred with and dated Elvis, and was married to Dudley Moore and Pinchas Zukerman during her career. She and former Governor Weld share William Gordon Weld as their common ancestor.
[edit] Ludovicus Weld
Besides those Welds described here who are descended from Capt. Joseph Weld (hero of the Pequot War), there are at least two notable 19th century Welds who are descended from Joseph's older brother Thomas who returned to England in 1641. Both these Welds were born in Hampton, Connecticut and both are the sons of Ludovicus Weld.
[edit] Theodore Dwight Weld
Ludovicus Weld's son Theodore Dwight Weld was one of the most important abolitionists in American history, a colleague of John Quincy Adams, and a disciple of Charles Grandison Finney. Theodore Dwight Weld married civil rights advocate Angelina Grimké (who then became known as Angelina Grimké Weld).
Theodore and Angelina's multiracial niece (who was related to the Welds by marriage but not by blood) was named Angelina Weld Grimké and is remembered as one of the premier poets of the Harlem Renaissance.
[edit] Ezra Greenleaf Weld
Another of Ludovicus Weld's sons, Ezra Greenleaf Weld was an early American photographer who operated a daguerreotype studio in Cazenovia, New York. Like his brother noted above, this Weld had ties to the abolitionist movement. "Greenleaf" (as this Weld was known) made images of such 19th centuries luminaries as Frederick Douglas, Abby Kelley and the Edmonson sisters.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ While there was no Weld among the names of the 26 male Mayflower passengers currently known to have descendants, genealogists such as Gary Boyd Roberts of New England Historic Genealogical Society have pointed out that tens of millions of Americans (approximately one in seven) has at least one ancestor who was among this group of early settlers. William Weld, whose family has been in Massachusetts since the 1600s, has several Mayflower ancestors from whom he is descended through multiple lines (making Billy Bulger's statement very accurate).
- ^ Annals and Reminiscences of Jamaica Plain by Harriet Manning Whitcomb
- ^ Note that before becoming associated with Texas, the Bush family was another well-established New England family like the Welds and several others mentioned in this article. George H. Bush, for example, was born in Milton, Massachusetts, and raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. See also "earliest confirmed direct ancestor of the Bush political family."
- ^ Gov. Weld's son David joked, "Our father used to tell us that all our ancestors were opium smugglers--it's pretty much the family business...I've even had a hand in it myself." (Lambert, C.A., "The Welds of Harvard Yard", Harvard Magazine, November-December 1998)
[edit] Bibliography
- Anderson, I., Under the Black Horse Flag, Boston, 1926.
- Arnold, G.W., The Old Farm, Boston, 1937.
- Badger, A., The Welds, privately printed, Chestnut Hill, 1987.
- Drake, F.S., The Town of Roxbury, Roxbury, 1878.
- C. W. Fowler, History of the Weld Family, 1879.
- Heath, R., Allandale Woods, Boston Natural Areas Fund, Boston 1989.
- Lambert, C.A., "The Welds of Harvard Yard", Harvard Magazine, November-December 1998.
- Sutton, S.B., Arnold Arboretum: The First Century, Boston, 1971.
- Weld, W.G., "The Family of Weld", MS at New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston.
- Whitcomb, H.M. Annals and Reminiscences of Jamaica Plain, Boston, 1897.
[edit] References
- Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University, Colonel Eleazer Weld
- Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, Larz Anderson and Isabel Weld Perkings
- BU Bridge News, Weld House & Dunn House
- Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, "Theodore Dwight Weld"
- Harvard Magazine, "The Welds of Harvard Yard" by associate editor Craig A. Lambert
- Historic Houses In Dorset, "Lulworth Castle"
- Jamaica Plain Historical Society, "The Weld Family"
- Jamaica Plain Historical Society, "Revolutionary War Burial Site Near Arboretum"
- Larz Anderson Auto Museum, "The Andersons"
- Project Gutenberg, Book of Annals and Reminiscences of Jamaica Plain by Harriet Manning Whitcomb
