He was born on September 8, 1837, in Owego, New York, into a family with deep New England roots that trace back to Thomas Welles (1590–1659), who arrived in Massachusetts in 1635 and was the only man in Connecticut's history to hold all four top offices: governor, deputy governor, treasurer, and secretary; John Deming, (1615–1705) an early Puritan settler and original patentee of the Connecticut Colony; and Honor Treat, the daughter of Richard Treat (1584–1669) an early New England settler, Deputy to the Connecticut Legislature and also a Patentee of the Royal Charter of Connecticut, 1662.