Benjamin Wells    

Benjamin Wells came to Connellsville in 1794, and opened the first store in the town. He had held the office of collector of excise for Fayette and Westmoreland Counties during the Whiskey Insurrection, and at that time lived at Stewart’s Crossings, in what is now the borough of New Haven; but his house at that place having been burned by a mob of the insurgents in the year named, he abandoned his original location and moved across the river to Connellsville, where he built a log house on Water Street, near the eastern end of the Southwest Pennsylvania Railroad bridge. Some fourteen or fifteen years later he built the stone building on Water Street, to the southward of his log house. In this he and his son Charles carried on merchandising for some years. Besides Charles, Mr. Wells had also a son, John, who held the office of sub-collector under his father in 1793 and 1794. Both these sons emigrated to the western country. The last appearance of Charles Wells in Connellsville was when he left the town with a large number of teakettles, which he took from the Francis foundry, to be sold in the West. It appears that Benjamin Wells was an unpopular man (at least during a few years following 1794), not only here but throughout the county,—a fact which was probably, in a great degree, the result of his having held, and attempted to execute the duties of, the government office above named. The date of his death is not known, but that it was later than 1827 is shown by an entry in the borough records to the effect that in that year “Benjamin Wells presented to the council a fine piece of parchment, and it was ordered that the clerk have a Plan of the Borough made upon it, with the present owners’ names.”

History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men Philadelphia: L.H. Everts & Co., 1882, pages 368-369. View the image of this page online - Free Trial  Search Hundreds of 1880s-1890s Pennsylvania County History Books for biographies and historical information on your ancestors.  View the book page images on line and print them out for your genealogy file!  Free Access to the old history books - plus birth & death records, census images and ALL other records at ancestry.com.