 Wells, a newly ordained priest, determined to act on his earlier desire to become a missionary and Bishop Benjamin Wistar Morris of the then-frontier states of Oregon and Washington asked Wells to become rector of a struggling mission in Walla Walla, Washington.In 1872, during his second year as rector in Walla Walla, Wells founded the St. Paul's Girls' School as well as a Boys' School that was never as successful.In 1880, Wells married the principal of St. Paul's Girls' School, Henrietta Garretson, whose father was a senator of Pennsylvania.