Internet Archive research notes

This research collection contains two letters written in 1937 by Abigail May (“May”) Zumwalt of Portland, Oregon, to Mary T. Wells of Elkton, Oregon, together with the surviving envelope associated with the August 14 letter. The letters are dated June 12, 1937 and August 14, 1937. The envelope is postmarked Portland on August 14, 1937, and addressed to Miss Mary T. Wells, Elkton, Oregon.

The correspondence documents active Wells-family genealogical research being carried out in the 1930s. Zumwalt and Wells exchanged information with relatives and other researchers, compared conflicting family records, sought census information, attempted to locate an old Wells family Bible, and worked to distinguish members of several similarly named Wells families.

Names and places mentioned in the correspondence include Daniel Wells, Nelson Wells, Harriet Dow, Ira Wells, Rinnah Wells, Anthony Wells, Eri Wells, Columbus Wells, Francis Wells, Grace Murray, Zuma Township, Rock Island County, Wayne County, Illinois, Ohio, Montana, and Nebraska. The June letter also contains references to D. N. Beal and other Beal/Beale material, making the Beal connection an important breadcrumb for future research.

The letters provide unusually direct evidence of Mary T. Wells as an active family historian, not merely a later custodian of family papers. Zumwalt states that she is filing letters “of value for records,” and the correspondence shows the two women exchanging and preserving genealogical information systematically.

Mary T. Wells was a daughter of Ira Wells and Anna Elizabeth Mandler Wells and a sister of Esther Wells Smith. Mary never married and had no children. Portions of the Wells family papers later passed to relatives and to the Douglas County Museum, including material associated with Mary’s historical and genealogical work.

A later Wells-family researcher, Gary Ray, author of Wells and Hawley: Puritans, Patriots and Pioneers: New England to Oregon, stated that much of the research used in his book was based on the earlier work of Abigail May Zumwalt and Mary T. Wells. This gives these letters significance not only as family correspondence but as part of the research foundation for later published Wells genealogy.

Working research breadcrumbs: May Zumwalt addresses Mary Wells as “Cousin Mary,” indicating a family relationship, but the exact line connecting the Zumwalt and Wells families has not yet been established in this research collection. Later discussion suggested possible connections through the broader Zumwalt, Beal/Beale, Wells, and related pioneer families, but these should remain working leads until documented. The Beal/Beale references in the letters may also connect with other Beale material appearing elsewhere in the extended Wells-Smith family research.