Henry C. Welles

Henry Carter Welles (May 13, 1821 – July 7, 1868) was an American druggist and businessman. He is thought of as one of the founders of Memorial Day, along with former Union General John B. Murray.^[1]

Welles was born in Glastonbury, Connecticut in 1821 to Henry and Sila Welles. She was a distant cousin of her husband and shared the same last name.^[2] Henry’s father died when he was young and his mother moved the family to Waterloo, New York where her brother Gardner Welles worked as a physician.^[3]

Welles married Josephine Shotwell in 1857. They had two children, Sterling Hadley Welles and Helen Lavanche Welles, who both died in 1861.^[3] Welles was a druggist and businessman until he died in Waterloo on July 7, 1868.

Presidential proclamation

President Lyndon Johnson proclaimed Waterloo the birthplace of the holiday following the passage of House Concurrent Resolution (HCR) 587 in 1966.^[4] The resolution and proclamation were based on research done by eight members of the community who comprised the Research Committee of the Waterloo Memorial Day Centennial Committee.^[5] Their purpose was to promote the centennial of the founding of Memorial Day on May 5, 1866. The holiday was supposedly conceived by Welles, who communicated the idea to Murray, the county clerk who helped carry it out.

William H. Burton house, location of the National Memorial Day Museum, Waterloo, New York

Myth exposed

Almost fifty years after the Presidential proclamation, Bellware and Gardiner published The Genesis of the Memorial Day Holiday in America, which refutes the claim. According to the research committee, there are no contemporaneous reports of this celebration. Their earliest sources date from 1882, sixteen years after the event. The Waterloo legend states clearly that the founder, Henry C. Welles, died five weeks after he inaugurated that first Memorial Day in Waterloo in 1866. However, Welles died on July 7, 1868, according to the Waterloo Observer, July 8, 1868.^[6]

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