Samuel Wells inherited his family home in the Western Massachusetts town of Deerfield after the death of his brother, Ebenezer (1758-1793), a silversmith. Wells briefly owned several other properties, but apparently lived on the family lot near the town common all of his forty-four years. In 1794, he married Esther Arms (1772-1853) and had five children, three of whom lived to adulthood. Wells was a farmer and he also took an interest in the state’s politics and agricultural economy, as evidenced by the letter shown here from friend Elihu Hoyt who was Deerfield’s representative to the General Court in Boston. The Wells family home, built circa 1726, burned in 1892.