T. J. Wells is the son of Thomas and Mary (Hoskins) Wells, natives of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and of Welsh and German descent, respectively. Thomas Wells and his second wife, our subject's mother, were married in Kentucky, where he cultivated the soil, and was also engaged in the grist-mill business, and in distilling, which occupations he followed for a period of twenty-nine years. In 1837 he sold out, and moved to Northeast Missouri, when it was yet a wilderness. Here he resided eighteen months, and then moved to Washington Township, Clark Co., Mo., where he lived for a short time before his death, when he broke up housekeeping, and he and his wife went to live with a son, Joseph Wells, in Union Township, where he died in the year 1855, at the age of seventy-seven. He was a Democrat, and a member of the Old School Baptist Church. The widow was a good Christian woman, and died in 1873, aged eighty-nine. Our subject was born in Nelson County, Ky., February 2, 1826 and is the fifth son of a family of nine children, five of whom are yet living-three brothers and two sisters. He remained with his parents until twenty-one years of age, and then began working for his parents for a number of years. During this time he married Miss Elizabeth Laswell, daughter of William Laswell, a native of Hardin County, Ky. In 1850 he purchased 160 acres of land, for which he went in debt, but in a short time paid for it all, and in 1852 he purchased 120 acres more, which he also paid for in a few years. In 1861 he enlisted in the Southern Army under Gen. Jackson, and was out one year. He lost the principal part of his property during the war, and plodded along after a fashion until 1867, when he began to make money, and this he continued up to 1874, when he again met reverses. To his marriage were born twelve children, eleven now living: William H., Sarah J., Thomas J., Jr., Mary E., Lucy A., Jesse L., Elizabeth, James F., Emily C., Harvey E. and Henry E. The mother of these children died November 8, 1885; she was a good woman, and was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Mr. Wells is a Democrat in politics, and a member of the Masonic fraternity.