On Sunday September 11, 2022, a visitor came to Bucks from Arizona on a personal pilgrimage to find her roots. This is the story...

From America to Bucks

Jadene Wardrip and her husband Rick travelled all the way from Mesa near Phoenix in Arizona to England. They stayed in London, and got off the train at Chesham station on the morning of Sunday September 11, 2022. They walked round the High Street, got a coffee at a café, which was one of the few places open, and were not sure what the day was going to bring. Then they got a taxi to the village of Ley Hill to attend the Harvest Thanksgiving at Ley Hill Methodist church. There, Jadene introduced herself as a descendant of James and Elizabeth Wells, whose plaque hangs at the back of the chapel. There, she also met a distant cousin, Sue Bruton-Lacey, great-granddaughter of Alfred John Wells. Over a cup of tea they chatted to local people to see who else they might be related to. After church, they went to Crab Tree Farm where their Wells forebears used to live. The new owners Geoff and Sandy, along with the previous owners Lindsay and Margaret Faulkner, kindly showed them round the ancient farmhouse and its grounds.

James and Elizabeth Wells

The story of why Jadene came, goes back to James Wells who was born in Chartridge in 1832. He moved to Ley Hill about 1851, aged about 19, where he met Elizabeth Palmer, who he married in 1853. They became leaders at Ley Hill Methodist church. James Wells worked on farms as a labourer, but about 1875 he leased the Stag’s Head pub at Venus Hill which came with 16 acres. In the 1880s they moved to Crab Tree Farm at Ley Hill where they farmed. Their barn was often used to hold church services in. Elizabeth Wells died in 1899 aged 65 and James Wells died in 1903 aged 72. They are both buried in Chesham cemetery. In 1904, grateful members of the church put up a marble plaque in their memory, which is still hangs on the wall in the chapel.

Emigration

During the 1880s and 1890s British agriculture went through depression. Many rural workers moved to the cities, and many also emigrated, especially to North America. Bucks newspapers ran advertisements from steamship companies for passages on ships from Liverpool to New York and Philadelphia, and through train tickets were available to take people onto Chicago for the mid-western states of the USA. Many thousands of local people left attracted by free land for agricultural labourers and farmers, never to return again. In places like Illinois and Iowa, it was said that English farmers were the best for farming the heavy, wet ground as it was like the land in England. Amongst those were two sons of James and Elizabeth Wells: Christopher Wells and Fred Wells who later emigrated to the Illinois in the USA, and were followed by other relatives.

Crab Tree Farm

Meanwhile Crab Tree Farm stayed in the Wells family for three generations. After James Wells died, the farm was taken over by his son Alfred John Wells and then later by his son Ernie Wells, until he died in 1976. In 2015 Lindsay Faulkner, who then owned Crab Tree Farm, found an old grain sack with “James Wells” written on it.

Emigrating to Illinois

Christopher Wells was born at Ley Hill in 1856. He married Mary Jane Locke in 1881. They emigrated to the USA in 1885 with a son Alfred John, and a daughter Ada. They left on the SS Lord Gough, leaving Liverpool on July 11, 1885, and they arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 11 days later. For many years, they lived and farmed rented ground in Sheffield, Illinois, and then moved to Annawan, Illinois.

Chris Wells’s brother Fred Wells was born at Ley Hill in 1865. He moved to Whelpley Hill and married Emily Saunders in Chesham in 1888. They had a daughter, Ruth Lily Wells ,born in 1890, and when she was only six weeks old they emigrated to the USA, to join his brother Chris at Annawan in Illinois. It is said that Fred Wells arrived with just five dollars in his pocket.

In 1894 Emily’s brother George Saunders and his wife Charlotte and their daughter Emily also joined them, and they settled at Mineral Township near Annawan. In 1906 the Wells brothers were joined by their nephew Bertie Wells, son of their brother Edwin, who was born at Chalfont St Giles in 1884.

In 1913 the three men split up their business: Chris Wells stayed and farmed 55 acres in Annawan, Illinois, but Fred Wells moved to Iowa, and Bertie Wells moved to Denver Township, Minnesota. Fred and Emily Wells moved their family to a farm near Hazelton, Iowa. Chris Wells died at Annawan in 1939 aged 82, Fred Wells died in Iowa in 1963 aged 98, and Bertie Wells died in South Dakota in 1968 aged 83.

Visiting Americans

Some of the Wells families still live in Illinois and Iowa, and some have moved further away. Some of them still farm, and they are very proud of their connections to Ley Hill. From time to time different descendants of the Wells family come from America to Ley Hill to visit Crab Tree Farm and Ley Hill Methodist Chapel. Jean Beaird came in 1974 and 2004. Leanne Kay came in 1994. Dick Wells came in 2007. In September 2022, Jadene Wardrip, descendant of Fred and Emily Wells, came to England hoping to meet relatives, and made some new friends at Ley Hill. The experience was a bit like her own personalised edition of telly’s Who Do You Think You Are?

If you think you are related to Jadene please contact Neil on nwrees@gmail.com and he can connect you.