Wetmore, George Ludlow

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Phillip Buckner, “WETMORE, GEORGE LUDLOW,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 6, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/wetmore_george_ludlow_6E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Lawyer and office holder; b. 26 Dec. 1795 in Gagetown, N.B., eldest son of Thomas Wetmore and Sarah Peters; m. 26 Dec. 1816 Harriet Rainsford, and they had four children, including Andrew Rainsford Wetmore; d. 2 Oct. 1821 on Maryland Hill (Fredericton), N.B.
    • As the eldest son of the attorney general of New Brunswick, George Ludlow Wetmore had a promising future. He studied law with his father, was admitted to the Supreme Court as an attorney, and on 18 June 1816 was appointed clerk of the House of Assembly. After becoming a barrister on 2 March 1819, he entered into a partnership with his father in Fredericton. Their major competitors at the bar were Samuel Denny Street and his son George Frederick Street. Samuel Denny Street had long resented his exclusion from the inner circle of American-born loyalists who monopolized government patronage and in 1800 had fought a duel with John Murray Bliss, whose son, George Pidgeon Bliss, was to marry George Ludlow Wetmore’s sister Sarah in 1819. The animosity between Street and the loyalist élite was passed on to the second generation. During the trial of the sheriff of York County for false arrest in 1821, George Frederick Street, who was counsel for the sheriff, and George Ludlow Wetmore, who was acting for the plaintiff, nearly came to blows outside the courtroom and Wetmore challenged Street to a duel.
    • Street’s second bullet hit Wetmore above the wrist, passed through his elbow, and struck him in the head. Doctors were summoned but by the time they arrived Wetmore was dead. He was not quite 26 and he left behind a pregnant wife and three children. The fourth child of the marriage was a daughter who would be named George. Wetmore’s wife lived to be 94 but never spoke to a Street again.
  • Son of Proven United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=8950
  • Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/61902745/george_ludlow-wetmore