William Shepard Wetmore

William Shepard Wetmore (January 26, 1801 – June 16, 1862) was an American businessman and philanthropist who was an Old China Trade merchant.

Early life He was born on January 26, 1801, to Nancy Shepard and Seth Wetmore in St. Albans, Vermont. He was a sixth-generation descendant of Thomas Whitmore, who immigrated to Boston in 1635 from the west coast of England and became one of the earliest settlers of the Connecticut Colony. His mother died on February 2, 1802.

Career William was mentored by an uncle, Samuel Wetmore, who was in a mercantile partnership with another uncle, Chauncy Whittlesey, in Middletown, Connecticut. In 1815 Samuel and his brother William Willard Wetmore moved to Providence, Rhode Island, entering into a business partnership with the merchants Edward Carrington & Company. When William was fourteen years of age, he was hired aboard the ship Fame, bound for England, South America, and the East Indies. In 1823, a trip on the Lion stranded him in Valparaíso, Chile. He took employment in Chile with the firm Richard Alsop of Middletown, Connecticut. This eventually led to a partnership of Alsop, Wetmore and Cryder in 1825 with John Cryder of Philadelphia. In 1829, he retired from the firm. During his time in the Far East, Wetmore collected a variety of Chinese objects, porcelains and china, which he imported home. Wetmore later left New York City and retired to Newport, Rhode Island, where he bought of land. They had three children:

William Shepard Wetmore Jr. (1844–1858), who died of scarlet fever in June 1858. George Peabody Wetmore (1846–1921), later the Governor of Rhode Island and a U.S. Senator. In 1860 he added a massive stone moon gate on the grounds from designs brought back from China.

However, there is no mention of his wife, Anstiss, in a series of letters written between Annie, George, and their father, corresponding between Newport and New York City during the years 1856–1860. It is believed she lived at the Merlano Cottage in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.

William S. Wetmore conducted an active community life in Newport as a founder and incorporator of the Newport Historical Society in 1854, as the first and continuing chairman of the Newport Reading Room, 1854–1861, and as a Director of the Redwood Library from 1856 to 1862. Wetmore was one of sixteen Newporters who joined to contribute $16,500.00 to Touro Park. He was also elected vice president of the innovative Butler Hospital for the insane in 1858, which initiated reform of treatment for the poor and insane.

Upon William Wetmore's death on June 16, 1862, sixteen-year-old George and fourteen-year-old Annie were master and mistress of Chateau-sur-Mer.