WELLES, Noah, clergyman, born in Colchester, Connecticut, 25 September, 1718; died in Stamford, Connecticut, 31 December, 1776. He was graduated at Yale in 1741, remained there a year as dean's scholar, and then took charge of Hopkins grammar-school at Hartford, at the same time studying theology. He was a tutor at Yale in 1745-'6, and in the latter year received a call to Stamford, where he remained till the day of his death, the thirtieth anniversary of his ordination. He took an active part in the discussion of the validity of Presbyterian ordination and in relation to the proposed American episcopate, and at the opening of the Revolution advocated from his pulpit resistance to the mother country. In 1774 he was chosen a fellow of Yale, and in the same year Princeton gave him the degree of D.D. On the resignation of Dr. Thomas Clap from the presidency of Yale in 1766, Dr. Welles was a prominent candidate for the office. President Timothy Dwight, who was his nephew by marriage, says : "His imagination was vivid and poetical, his intellect vigorous, and his learning extensive. His manners, at the same time, were an unusual happy compound of politeness and dignity." Dr. Welles published " The Real Advantages which Ministers and People may enjoy, especially in the Colonies, by conforming to the Church of England," a clever anonymous attack on the Episcopalian party, which has been attributed also to Reverend Noah Hobart, of Fairfield (Boston, 1762); "The Divine Right of Presbyterian Ordination Asserted " (New York, 1763);" Patriotism Described and Recommended," the annual "election sermon" (New London. 1774); and " Vindication of the Validity and Divine Right of Presbyterian Ordination, as set forth in Dr. Chauncy's Sermon, and Mr. Welles's Discourse in Answer to the Exceptions of Mr. Jeremiah Learning" (New Haven, 1767). He was also the author of a poem addressed to his class-mate and friend, Governor William Livingston, which is prefixed to the latter's "Philosophic Solitude" (New York, 174%