Guilford Wiley Wells
American politician (1840-1909)
Guilford Wiley Wells (February 14, 1840 – March 21, 1909) was a Reconstruction-era U.S. Representative from Mississippi.
Born in Conesus Center, New York, Wells attended the Genesee Wesleyan Seminary and College in Lima.
He enlisted in the Union Army as a private in the Twenty-seventh New York Infantry May 21, 1861.
He was promoted to second lieutenant in the One Hundred and Thirtieth New York Infantry in 1862 and subsequently to first lieutenant and captain in the Nineteenth New York Cavalry. He was mustered out on February 10, 1865, as a lieutenant colonel.
Wiles graduated from the law department of Columbian College (later George Washington University), in Washington, D.C., in 1867. He was admitted to the bar in 1867 and commenced practice in Holly Springs, Mississippi. He served as United States Attorney for the Northern District of Mississippi between 1870 and 1875.
Wells was elected as an Independent Republican to the Forty-fourth Congress (March 4, 1875 – March 3, 1877). He declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1876.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1553819. VIAF identifies the subject as 86382293. The Library of Congress control number is no2009061266. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1840, 1909, 1861 and 1862.
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This entry incorporates text from “Guilford Wiley Wells” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.