Anna Maria Wells

Anna Maria Foster was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, ca. 1794. Her father, Benjamin Foster, died when she was an infant. Her mother, Mary Ingersoll Foster, then married Joseph Locke. She was his second wife, the first being Mary's sister, Martha. Her mother and step-father had seven children, including the poet, Frances Sargent Osgood.[1] The family moved to Boston, where Wells received her education. She loved reading and music.

In 1829, she married Thomas Wells, a minor poet, who worked for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.[2] They had four children.[3]

She began to write verses when very young, but published little until her marriage. Wells contributed to several periodicals. In 1830, she published Poems and Juvenile Sketches, and thereafter was an occasional contributor to several periodicals that were edited by her personal friends.[2] The predominant characteristics of her poetry were tenderness of feeling, and simplicity and perspicuity of language.[3] Wells' contemporaries were Caroline Howard Gilman, Hannah Flagg Gould, Sarah Josepha Hale, Eliza Leslie, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, and Lydia Huntley Sigourney.[4]