Scope and Content Note
The papers of Henry Willis Wells (1841-1864) span the years 1851 to 2012, with the bulk of the material dating from 1851 to 1865. The collection documents Wells's young adulthood as a sailor traveling from his home in Massachusetts to various American and international ports, as well as Wells's service aboard Union naval vessels in the Chesapeake Bay and Florida Keys during the United States Civil War. The bulk of the collection consists of Wells's correspondence to his mother, Elizabeth Sewall Willis Wells. Additional correspondents include his father, Thomas Goodwin Wells; two of his sisters, Eliza May Wells Greeley and Louisa Wells Wendte; and his brother, Benjamin Wells. Wells's nephew and namesake, Henry Willis Wells (1895-1978), transcribed many of his uncle's Civil War letters, and these transcriptions, in manuscript form with errors, are contained in the collection.
The collection also includes various journals kept by Wells, a copy of the order book of the steamer Cambridge (copied by Wells), various certificates and appointment letters, and a photograph of Wells set into a fragment of porcelain.