T. Tileston Wells
Born
Thomas Tileston Wells

(1865-08-12)August 12, 1865
Manhattan, New York, US
DiedApril 23, 1946(1946-04-23) (aged 80)
Manhattan, New York, US
Resting placeChrist Church, New Brunswick, New Jersey, US
EducationColumbia Law School
Harvard University
Columbia University
Occupation(s)Consul General of Romania
Attorney
Employer(s)T. Tileston Wells
Wells & Moran
Wells, Moran & Derby
Wood, Wells, Moran & Derby
Lexow, MacKellar, Guy & Wells
Lexow, MacKellar & Wells
Lexow & Wells
Board member ofRoumanian Relief Committee of America

Serbian Relief Committee of America
Fédération d'Alliance Française

Children's Aid Society
HonoursChevalier de la Légion d'Honneur

Ordre des Palmes académiques
Royal Order of the Redeemer
Order of St. Sava
Order of the Crown
Order of the Star
Order of the Red Cross

Order of Adolphe of Nassau

Thomas Tileston Wells (September 12, 1865 – April 23, 1946) was an American attorney and the Romanian Consul General.[1][2] He also was a leader in French, Serbian, and Romanian relief efforts during World War I. He was highly decorated by European countries, including receiving a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur from France.

Early life

Wells was the child of Grace (née Tileston) and John Wells, a merchant.[3] Wells was born at his maternal grandmother Tileston's house at 2 East 14th Street in Manhattan, New York.[1][4] His paternal grandfather was a successful lawyer, Thomas L. Wells.[1] His paternal grandmother, Julia Beach Lawrence, was the daughter of the largest landowner in New York state and an East India merchant.[4]

After his father died in 1871 when Wells was six years old, the family lived at Sommariva, his mother's home in New Brunswick, New Jersey that overlooked the Raritan River.[4] However, they also spent several years abroad, including living in Romania.[4][5] When they returned to America and Wells enrolled in college, they also had a house at 56 West 17th Street in New York City.[4]

While he was in law school, the family moved to 12 West 19th Street which was better suited for his sisters' coming out party.[4] In 1890, his mother purchased a house at 52 East 25th Street where Wells lived until his marriage.[4] The family also spent summers in Bar Harbor on Mount Desert Island in Maine.[4]

His primary education was mostly abroad but he also attended St. Mark's School in Southborough, Massachusetts.[3] He attended Columbia University from 1883 to 1887.[3][6] While at Columbia, he was a member of the Fraternity of Delta Psi (St. Anthony Hall).[3][7] He also attended Harvard University, graduating with the class of 1888.[3][8] He then went to Columbia Law School, graduating with a LL.B in 1890.[1][3]

Career

Attorney

Wells was elected to the New York State Bar Association on December 9, 1890.[9][4] He received permission to practice at the Supreme Court of the United States on April 9, 1897.[4]

He formed a firm, Lexow & Wells with Clarence Lexow who also attended Columbia University and was a member of the New York State Senate.[2][4] In 1895, they created the firm Lexow, MacKellar & Wells with George M. Mackellar.[10][11] Their offices were at 19 Liberty Street in New York City.[11] At some point, the firm expanded to become Lexow, MacKellar, Guy & Wells.[4] Their offices were at 43 Cedar Street, New York City.[3] Wells stayed with this firm through 1916; although Lexow died in 1910.[1][12]

In 1900, Wells was a member of the Lawyers' Sound Money Campaign Club.[13] In 1905, he was elected to serve as a director of the Aetna Indemnity Company; he was reelected for another two-year term in 1907.[14][15]

Wells specialized in serving as the receiver for bankrupt cases at the United States District Court.[16][17][18] In 1907, he was appointed to serve as the receiver for the New York Tunnel Company which was constructing the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel under the East River from the Battery in Manhattan to Brooklyn.[19][20] The newspapers reported that the Tunnel Company had 46 suits against it, totaling in excess of $100,000 ($3,257,037 in today's money).[19][20] In 1913, Wells was the receiver for H.B. Hollins & Co., a New York City banking company that owed funds to J.P. Morgan and William K. Vanderbilt; its debuts were reported to be more than $4,500,000 ($121,018,349 in today's money).[21]

In 1916, Wells formed Wells & Moran with attorney and railroad president Charles Moran Jr.[4][22] From 1918 to 1927, they expanded the firm to Wood, Wells, Moran & Derby which added Chalmers Wood and James L. Derby; the latter being a recent Harvard University graduate.[1][23][22][8] Their offices were at 68 William Street in Manhattan.[23] This firm became Wells, Moran & Derby, and, later, returned to just Wells & Moran.[4] Starting in 1937, Wells was in solo practice with offices at 25 Broadway and 1819 Broadway in New York City.[6]

General Consul

In 1918, Romania opened a consulate at 43 Cedar Street in New York City, and Wells became its consul.[1][24][4] On April 26, 1919, Wells was appointed General Consul for Romania in America.[24][2] He remained in that position until 1938 when a Romanian replaced him.[2][25] Wells provided this service to Romania without pay for nineteen years.[25] He then served as Honorary General Consul until 1941.[1] He also served on the executive committee of Friends of Roumania.[6]

In 1920, Crown Prince Carol, heir to the Romanian throne, visited New York City incognito.[26] As the Consul General, Wells was part of the reception committee.[26] He also took the prince on a driving tour of the city.[26]

In The New York Times on February 1926, Wells defended Romania's position regarding paying Austria and Hungary for pre-war bonds.[27] In March of the same year, he again wrote the newspaper to provide context to reports of Romania's trial and execution of some prisoners who he claimed traitors associated with the Soviet Union which was trying to gain a foothold in Romania.[28] In both of these instances, Wells is responding officially, as the Consul General of Romania.[28][27]

In October 1926, Wells helped coordinate the New York portion of Queen Marie of Romania's royal visit to America, along with Princess Ileana and Prince Nicholas.[29] He was also fourth in the royal procession at the ball hosted by the Friends of Roumania at the Ritz–Carlton Hotel in New York City, with some 700 guests in attendance.[30]

In 1927, Wells again defended Romania when an article in The New York Times cited a report by the American Committee on the Rights Religious Minorities that stated religious and cultural minorities were being treated poorly in that country.[31][32] Wells called the report "unfair and exaggerated," indicating that the League of Nations had already reviewed these claims.[31] The executive secretary of the American Jewish Congress, Bernard G. Richards responded, "The grievous wrongs suffered by the Jewish citizens of Rumania [sic], to which we have repeatedly sought to call attention, are now voiced by an impartial deputation representative of various Christian denominations..."[31] Leo Wolfson, president of the United Rumanian Jews of America, also responded, writing, "Mr. Wells is a distinguished American lawyer, but he knows about Rumania and her Jews what he has been told, or what he has been shown when he visits the country he represents."[33]

In 1928, Wells visited Queen Marie and Iuliu Maniu, Prime Minister of Romania, while on a three-month trip to Europe.[34] In 1938, Wells headed a group of 300 mourners for the Dowager Queen Marie at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan.[35]

World War I

In 1914, the Wells family went on a hiking vacation in the Swiss and Austrian Alps.[36] At the time, his son John was eighteen, and his daughter Georgina was eleven.[37] As they traveled from France to Austria, they were caught at the beginning of World War I, unable to use their return train tickets because the trains were commandeered to move French soldiers.[36] When the family tried exiting Europe through Italy on August 2, 1914, Austrian officials arrested Wells as a Russian spy—threatening him with immediate execution.[38][39] Fortunately, Wells had an introductory letter from William Jennings Bryan who was United States Secretary of State at the time, leading to his release.[37][38] Wells said two other individuals were taken prisoner at the same time but were not released; he "did not know what became of them."[40]

The Wells family eventually made it Venice, Italy but a bank crisis meant they were unable to access the funds that the U.S. Congress put in place to help Americans escape Europe.[37] However, the family eventually made it to Rome and sailed on the SS Canopic from Naples, arriving in Boston, Massachusetts on September 25, 1914.[37][38] Once safely in the United States, Wells wrote a memoir about their experiences and the brutality they witnessed.[36] When his memoir was published in 2017, Kirkus Reviews wrote, "Wells' interpretations of the grand history unfolding around him are consistently insightful and prescient...This is historical scholarship at its best: rigorous, testimonial, and dramatic."[37]

In September 1914, Wells was a member of the founding committee of the American branch of Secours National which raised funds to help Belgian and French refugees from the war.[41] One of their appeals that ran in newspapers across the country said they were "organized in France to give immediate relief to the women, old people and children crying for bread and in need of clothing." It was also noted that the 22-person committee, including Wells, was covering all expenses, including shipping clothing to France—100% of donated money went to "these sufferers."[42]

Serbian Relief Committee of America poster, 1915

Wells also chaired the Serbian Relief Committee of America from 1915 to 1918.[1][4] The committee helped the hundreds of thousands of refugees who fled Serbia in the early part of the war and sent grain seed and farming implements to Serbia so starving women and children could produce food.[43][44] The committee also held lectures and published materials, both to educate and to raise funds for its cause.[45][46] Wells said, "Last fall, strategy obliged the Serbian army to fall back into the interior towards its arsenals, leaving Belgrade and the two most fertile districts of the country undefended. The peasants fled to the south and their buildings, granaries, and agricultural implements were destroyed... An official report gives the number of fugitives from the provinces...as 675,000 and 315,000 more from the large towns."[47]

The Serbian Relief Committee's efforts quickly shifted from agriculture to fighting a typhus epidemic. Wells reported, "The conditions in Serbia have been bad, but are rapidly getting worse because the people, having been driven from their farms and villages by the Austrian invasion, have been herded into concentration camps where only the barest of necessities of food have been available to keep them alive, and where sanitary precautions were impossible. The result has been that typhus fever has now broken out which is likely to decimate that brave people unless medical help and nourishing food can be rapidly supplied to them."[48]

Wells was also head of the Roumanian Relief Committee of America.[4] This group existed to coordinate "mass meetings of protest all over the United States against the treatment of Roumanian Jews, and to raise funds for the relief of the sufferers."[49] In December 1917, he represented the Roumanian Relief Committee at the annual convention of the American Union of Rumanian Jews and agreed to head a committee from the group so that views could be shared.[5]

In 1917, Wells served on a fourteen-person committee that paid to print an English-French handbook for American soldiers going to France.[50] Some 150,000 copies of the 64-page book, with a waterproof covering, were distributed to soldiers by the National Security League.[50]

Honors

Personal

Wells married Georgina Betts of New York City on April 18, 1894.[4] She was the daughter of Colonel and Mrs. George R. Betts.[4] His mother gave the newlyweds a house in New Rochelle, New York on Neptune Island which they used as a summer home.[4] They spent the winters with his aunt at 26 East 38 Street in New York City.[4] Eventually, the couple secured their winter apartment at 42 East 25th Street in New York City.[4] When Colonel Betts died, they moved into the Betts house at 102 Madison Avenue, living there for around eleven years.[4] Then, they purchased a home at 52 East 76th Street in Manhattan.[4][3] They had three children: John Wells, Georgina Lawrence Wells, and Lawrence Wells who died in early childhood.[3][4][1]

In January 1900, Wells and his wife were invitees to the first levee of the winter season for the McKinley White House.[54]

In 1898, Wells joined the board of the Five Points House of Industry in New York City; he served as the charity's president for 21 years, starting in 1914.[4][3] He was also a trustee of the Children's Aid Society from 1909 to 1925.[4][3] He was a treasurer and board member of the Cloyne House School, a private school for boys based on the British system, in Newport, Rhode Island.[4][3][55]

Wells was treasurer of the Fédération d'Alliance Française from 1908 to 1925.[4][3] He was president of the Alliance Française of New York from 1910 to 1914.[1] He was also the organizer and founding president of the Alliance Française of New Brunswick, New Jersey.[56] The New Jersey chapter was affiliated with Rutgers College and grew to 114 members in its first year.[56][57] According to its website, "the mission of Alliance Française is to promote the French language and francophone cultures and to foster exchanges between French speakers and local communities."[58]

Socially, Wells was a member of the American Yacht Club, the Calumet Club, the City Midday Club, Down Town Association of the City of New York, the Mason's Holland Lodge, the St. Anthony Club of New York, the Union Club of New York City, and the Westchester Country Club.[4][1][3]

Wells died at his home in Manhattan, New York City at the age of 82.[1] He was buried at Christ Episcopal Church in New Brunswick, New Jersey.[2]

Publications

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 "T. Tileston Wells, Lawyer, Dies at 80" (PDF). The New York Times. April 24, 1946. Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "The Political Graveyard: Index to Politicians: Wells". Political Graveyard. Retrieved 2022-04-04.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Builders of Our Nation 20th Century Edition: Men of 1914. Chicago: Men of Nineteen-Fourteen, 1915. p. 811. via Google Books. Accessed November 28, 2023.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 Wells, T. Tileston (1927). Family Notes. New York, New York: Private Printing. p. 29. Retrieved April 4, 2022 – via Internet Archive.
  5. 1 2 "Seek Reforms in Rumania" (PDF). The New York Times. December 31, 1917. p. 6. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Wells, T. Tileston." Who's who in Law. Vol. 1. United States: J.C. Schwarz, 1937. p. 999. via Google Books.
  7. ↑ Meyer, H. L. G. Catalog of the Members of the Fraternity of Delta Psi Revised and Corrected to July 1906. New York: Fraternity of Delta Psi, 1906 via Google Books
  8. 1 2 "Alumni Notes". Harvard Alumni Bulletin. 24 (31): 787. May 11, 1922. Retrieved April 4, 2022 – via Google Books.
  9. ↑ "The Bar Association" (PDF). The New York Times. December 10, 1890. p. 8. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  10. ↑ "State Senator Clarence Lexow" Los Angeles Herald, Volume 43, Number 104, p. 6, 23 January 1895. via California Digital Newspaper Collection. Published by University of California, Riverside. Accessed April 4, 2022.
  11. 1 2 "Senator Lexow's Law Firm". New York Tribune. January 9, 1895. p. 4. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ↑ Ex-Senator Lexow, Investigator, Dead". The New York Times. December 31, 1910. p. 9. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  13. ↑ "Lawyers' Sound Money Campaign Club". New York Tribune. October 20, 1900. p. 18. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  14. ↑ "Copper Crowd Gets Control of Aetna Indemnity". Hartford Courant (Hartford, Connecticut). January 18, 1905. p. 1. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ↑ "Aetna Indemnity Company". Hartford Courant (Hartford, Connecticut). January 16, 1907. p. 6. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. ↑ "Business Troubles". The Sun (New York, New York). January 31, 1908. p. 11. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ↑ "In the District Court of the United States". The New York Times. June 4, 1909. p. 15. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  18. ↑ "Bankruptcy Petition Filed". The Wall Street Journal. January 30, 1911. p. 6. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. 1 2 "New York Tunnel Company Declared Bankrupt". The Standard Union (Brooklyn, New York). May 23, 1907. p. 1. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  20. 1 2 "Tunnel Firm is in a Financial Hole". The Central New Jersey Home News (New Brunswick, New Jersey). May 24, 1907. p. 2. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  21. ↑ "Gotham Banking Concern Fails". The Bucyrus Evening Telegraph (Bucyrus, Ohio). November 14, 1913. p. 1. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. 1 2 ""Moran, Charles"". Who's who in New York City and State. Vol. 8. L.R. Hamersly Company. 1924. p. 902. Retrieved April 4, 2022 – via Google Books.
  23. 1 2 New York Supreme Court. Appeal No. 2: Charlotte King Palmer against James C. Parrish. New York: New York Supreme Court. Retrieved April 4, 2022 – via Google Books.
  24. 1 2 "Dr. Wells Rumanian Consul General". The New York Times. May 11, 1919. p. 25. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  25. 1 2 "T. Tileston Wells: Former Romania Consul". Daily News (New York, New York). April 24, 1946. p. 37. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  26. 1 2 3 "Prince Carol Here for Week's Visit" (PDF). The New York Times. August 24, 1920. p. 10. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  27. 1 2 "Rumania's Actions on Bonds" (PDF). The New York Times. February 15, 1926. p. 18. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  28. 1 2 "The Rumanian Trials" (PDF). The New York Times. March 14, 1926. p. 22. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  29. ↑ "Physician Called for Queen Marie". The Evening Star (Hanover, Pennsylvania). October 23, 1926. p. 1. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  30. ↑ "Queen Marie Feted by Admirers Here; Reception Brilliant". The New York Times. October 21, 1926. pp. 1 and 3. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  31. 1 2 3 "Report of Rumania Assailed as Unfair: T. Tileston Well Says Data Given on Treatment of Minorities is Exaggerated" (PDF). The New York Times. March 16, 1927. p. 6. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  32. ↑ "Concerning Jews in Rumania" (PDF). The New York Times. February 13, 1927. p. 193. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  33. ↑ "The Jews in Rumania" (PDF). The New York Times. March 13, 1927. p. 180. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  34. ↑ "T. Tileston Wells Back" (PDF). The New York Times. March 16, 1928. p. 55. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  35. ↑ "300 Attend Service for Dowager Queen" (PDF). The New York Times. July 26, 1938. p. 19. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
  36. 1 2 3 Kelly, Christopher. "An Adventure in 1914: The True Story of an American Family's Journey on the Brink of WWI | Columbia Alumni Association". alumni.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2022-04-04.
  37. 1 2 3 4 5 "Reviews – An Adventure in 1914". Kirkus Review. 2017. Retrieved 2022-04-04.
  38. 1 2 3 "T. Tileston Wells, New York Lawyer, and Well Known Here, Suspected as Russian Spy and Locked in Customs House-Bryan Letter Saved Him". The Central New Jersey Home News (New Brunswick, New Jersey). September 25, 1914. p. 1. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  39. ↑ "Life Threatened in Austria: T. Tileston Wells of New York Was Accused of Being a Russian Spy". Boston Evening Post. September 24, 1914. p. 3. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  40. ↑ "Life Threatened in Austria: T. Tileston Wells of New York Was Accused of Being a Russian Spy part 2". Boston Evening Post. September 24, 1914. p. 3. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  41. ↑ "The American Branch of Secours National". New York Tribune. September 22, 1914. p. 7. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  42. ↑ "Will You Help to Save the Lives of Starving Women and Children?". The Brattleboro Daily Reformer (Brattleboro, Vermont). April 10, 1915. p. 5. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  43. ↑ "Serbian Relief Committee Formed". Bakersfield Morning Echo (Bakersfield, California). February 6, 1915. p. 8. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  44. ↑ Kushner, Tony. "Serbian child refugees in the First World War". Our Migration History. Retrieved April 4, 2022.
  45. ↑ "Serbian Heroism Savant's Theme". The Washington Herald (Washington, D.C.). February 7, 1915. p. 28. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  46. ↑ Gale, Allan Murray (1918). The Serbian and his country. New York: Serbian Relief Committee of America. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Internet Archive.
  47. ↑ "Serbia in Death Grip". The Washington Post. March 20, 1915. p. 9. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  48. ↑ "Organize to Relieve Terrible Agonies of Little Serbia". The Record (Hackensack, New Jersey). March 30, 1914. p. 4. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  49. ↑ "Relief Committee Formed". The New York Times. March 29, 1901. p. 2. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  50. 1 2 "Sammy "Parleyvoos"". Council Grove Republican (Council Grove, Kansas). November 29, 1917. p. 3. Retrieved April 5, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  51. ↑ "Honorary Degrees". The Central New Jersey Home News (New Brunswick, New Jersey). June 29, 1912. p. 3. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  52. ↑ "Decoration for Tileston Wells". The Central New Jersey Home News (New Brunswick, New Jersey). September 23, 1910. p. 5. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  53. ↑ "T. Tileston Wells Decorated". The Sun (New York, New York). April 28, 1914. p. 7. Retrieved March 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  54. ↑ "The Social World: The First White House Levee of Season". Evening Star (Washington, D.C.). January 11, 1900. p. 5. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  55. ↑ Covell, Virginia (Fall 1997). "The Cloyne House School:1895 - 1917" (PDF). The Green Light: Bulletin of the Point Association of Newport, Rhode Island: 14. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via The Point Association of Newport, Rhode Island.
  56. 1 2 "To Develop French Culture: The French Alliance of New Brunswick Has Been Founded, Thanks to Efforts of Mr. T. Tileston Wells". The Central New Jersey Home News (New Brunswick, New Jersey). October 26, 1908. p. 5. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  57. ↑ "French Alliance Growing in Interest". The Central New Jersey Home News (New Brunswick, New Jersey). October 8, 1909. p. 5. Retrieved April 5, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  58. ↑ "About the Alliance Française". Federation of Alliances Française USA. 16 October 2016. Retrieved 2022-04-05.
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