BIO:  Alfred Wells, York County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Kathy Francis

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History of York County, Pennsylvania.  John Gibson, Historical Editor.
Chicago: F. A. Battey Publishing Co., 1886.
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Part II, Biographical Sketches, Peach Bottom Township, Pg 168

REV. ALFRED WELLS, pastor of the Baptist Church, of Delta, is a native of Wales, and came with 
his parents to Minersville, Penn., in 1859.  He is the sixth of eight children, and was born 
August 8, 1846.  At the age of seventeen he began the trade of carriage smith at Tamaqua, and 
worked about a year and a half, when he went coal mining, which business he continued to follow 
for several years.  His education was acquired at common schools, and by making use of the 
hours that could be spared from his labor.  At the age of twenty-nine he was ordained a 
minister of the Baptist Church, though he had been for ten years before a licentiate.  His 
first charge was at Mahanoy, Schuylkill County, for which he went to Coleraine, Lancaster 
County, next to Green Valley, Chester County, and in 1879 came to Peach Bottom Township, York, 
where he took charge of a small congregation at Glenwood School House.  On the completion of 
the new church in Dela in 1884, he removed there.  From the age of nineteen until 1873 he was a 
member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.  He married in 1870, Martha Boughey, a native of 
Pennsylvania, and has four children living:  Adeline, William A., Josiah B. and Joseph T.  Mr. 
Wells, by his earnest devotion to his chosen work, has been largely instrumental in building up 
a flourishing congregation in Delta.  He also has charge of the Drumore Baptist Church, 
Lancaster County.