Benjamin Welles

Benjamin Sumner Welles, Jr. (January 11, 1857 – December 24, 1935) was an American philanthropist who was a descendant of many prominent Colonial families. Early life Welles was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 11, 1857. He was one of five children born to Katharine Elida Schermerhorn (1828–1858) and Benjamin Sumner Welles (1823–1904), a dry-goods merchant who was a descendant of Colonial Gov. Thomas Welles and Gov. Increase Sumner. His siblings included Helen Schermerhorn Welles, who married George Lovett Kingsland (son of Mayor Ambrose Kingsland), and Harriet Katherine Welles. His mother was one of nine children born to his maternal grandparents, Abraham Schermerhorn, a wealthy New York City merchant, and Helen Van Courtlandt (née White) Schermerhorn of the Van Cortlandt family. Through his grandfather, he was descended from Jacob Janse Schermerhorn, who settled in New York from the Netherlands in 1636. His maternal aunt was Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, known as "the Mrs. Astor", who was married to the immensely wealthy William Backhouse Astor Jr., and was considered the Gatekeeper of New York Society during the Gilded Age. Among his many cousins were Emily Astor, who married the politician James J. Van Alen, Helen Schermerhorn Astor, who married the diplomat James Roosevelt (the elder half-brother of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt), and John Jacob Astor IV, who married Ava Lowle Willing and, later, married socialite Madeleine Talmage Force, before perishing aboard the Titanic in 1912.