Ellis Family
Nathan, Jeremiah, Samuel, Hezekiah, James and Jesse, all sons of James Ellis and Mary Veatch, his wife, came to this section from the neighborhood of Brownsville on the Monongahela River, some sixty miles above Pittsburg, in 1795. Mr. and Mrs. James Ellis came from Wales early in the eighteenth century and settled first in Maryland, where after spending a few years, they emigrated to Western Pennsylvania, where Mr. Ellis died some time after the Revolutionary. War. There is nothing to show that there were any daughters in the family.
Religiously, the Ellises were Quakers of the strictest sect and were identified with the Colonists in the French and Indian Wars, and later on in the Revolutionary struggle, several of the name holding commissions in the Continental army. In the Spring of 1795, Captain Nathan Ellis and his five brothers embarked on boats at Brownsville and floated on down past Pittsburg into the Ohio, looking for homes in the mighty forests and fertile lands of the then almost unknown Northwest Territory. The Ohio was the great highway over which came much of the tide of emigration which have peopled this section of the Union, a mighty stream hemmed in by a continent of gloomy shade and wierd solitude, rolling its unbroken length for a thousand miles, a beautiful stretch of restless, heaving water which realized to the voyager the "ocean river of Homeric song."
Landing at Limestone, the Ellis brothers were so charmed with the romantic beauty of the region and the productiveness of the soil, that they determined at once to go no further. At that time, with the exception of a few isolated settlements at Marietta, Manchester, Gallipolis, and Cincinnati, there were but few settlers on the north hank of the river, while upon the south side of the country, it was swarming with emigrants seeking out and appropriating the richest lands and most eligible town sites. Like the Jordan of old, the Ohio was the great boundary line. It stayed the incursions of the Indians, and north of its immediate banks the wave of immigration had not rolled. The very day. April 27, 1795, that Nathan Ellis landed at Limestone, five hundred red men were encamped right across the river. Finding that the most valuable lands were taken up, the Ellis brothers determined to push on into the Northwest Territory. Nathan Ellis built the first home in what is known as Aberdeen, and twenty-one years after, laid out the town, naming it for the old Universitv town of Aberdeen, Scotland, in honor of one of his fellow townsmen who was a native of the place.
Samuel Ellis settled at Higginsport, eighteen miles below. James opened up a farm near the present site of Georgetown. Jeremiah Ellis bought lands near Bentonville. Hezekiah Ellis founded a home on the waters of Eagle Creek, and Jesse Ellis entered a tract on what is now known as Brooks Bar: three miles east of Aberdeen. More than a century has passed, yet such have been the staying qualities of the name that many of the original entries remain in the possession of the family. As a connection, they have ever been blessed with the good things of life and inherit many of the sterling qualities which distinguished their Quaker ancestors.
Nathan Ellis was born November 10, 1749, and Mary Walker, his wife, August 31, 1752. They were married in 1770. Nathan Ellis assisted Jonathan Zane and John McIntire in marking out the Zane Trace in 1797 and 1798. He became quite a large landowner, holding at one time eight thousand acres. Aberdeen was first known as "Ellis Ferry." Nathan Ellis became the first Justice of the Peace, an office he held until his death in 1819. In a very readable and interesting volume, "A Tour in the Western Country," published in 1808 by Fortescue Cumming, we find the following: "On Saturday, I returned to Ellis Ferry, opposite Maysville, on the banks of the Ohio. I found 'Squire Ellis seated on a bench under the shade of two locust trees, with a bottle, pen, ink, and several papers, holding a Justice Court which he does every Saturday. Seven or eight men were sitting on the bench with him, awaiting his award in their several cases. After he had finished, which was soon, after I had taken a seat under the same shade, one of the men invited the 'Squire to drink with him, which he consented to do. Some whiskey was procured from Landlord Powers in which all parties made a libation to peace and justice. There was something in the scene so primitive and so simple that I could not help enjoying it with much satisfaction. I took up my quarters for the night with Landlord Powers, who is an Irshman from the Ballinbay in the County of Monaghan. He pays 'Squire Ellis eight hundred dollars per annum for his tavern, fine farm and ferry."
Nathan Ellis and his wife were a couple of untiring energy and great force of character, fit representatives of the heroic men and women who settled in the Ohio Valley and laid the corner stone of the empire in the wilderness. Ten children were born to them: Margaret (Mrs. Scicily); Mary (Mrs. Campbell), 1773; John, 1777: Jeremiah, 1779; Jesse, 1782; Samuel, 1784; Nancy (Mrs. Grimes), 1786; Nathan, 1789; Hetty, 1792; she became the wife of Capt. John Campbell, a distinguished officer under General McArthur, in the War of 1812. Jesse was in his company and took part in many engagements. Elender, born 1795, married James Higgins and emigrated many years ago to Johnson County, Missouri, where she died November 10, 1882.
Jeremiah Ellis married Anna Underwood, daughter of a well-known and prominent Virginia gentleman in 1803. His son, Washington, was born in 1804, and in 1832 married Miss Aris Parker, of Mason County, Kentucky. Jesse Ellis married Sabina, a daughter of Captain Thomas Brooks, of Mason County, Ky., a warm friend and contemporary of Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton, and one of the founders of Maysville (1787); Major John Ellis married Keziah, a daughter of William Brooks, who, with his brother, Thomas, was captured at the battle of Blue Licks and held a prisoner by the Indians for five years. Major Ellis served in an Ohio regiment in the War of 1812, and had quite a noted career as a soldier. Jesse Ellis died in 1877 in his ninety-fifth year. His wife passed away five years later in her ninetieth year. Nathan Ellis died in 1819 and is buried on the hill overlooking Aberdeen. His mother, Mary Veatch, who died in 1799, rests in the Aberdeen cemetery. John died in 1829. Jeremiah died in 1857; Washington, in 1873; his wife in 1891. They all rest in the Ellis family cemetery at Ellis Landing in Sprigg Township, four miles east of Aberdeen. Jeremiah Ellis and Anna Underwood became the parents of ten children, five sons and five daughters, the best known of whom are the Hon. Jesse Ellis, of Aberdeen, Ohio, who has represented Adams County in the Legislature a number of times, and Samuel Ellis, deceased, formerly a sheriff of Lewis County, Kentucky.
Jesse Ellis, although now a resident of Brown County, was born in Adams County, December 19, 1833. He has always been a farmer, teacher and surveyor, and was at one time surveyor of Adams County for twelve consecutive years. He is a man of charming personality and has many devoted friends. In connection, it is but right that we should mention the record of the sons of the family in the war for the preservation of the Union. Many of them bore commissions but a far greater number were in the ranks. So far as the present writer is informed, the following bore commissions: Lieutenant Colonel Edward Ellis, 15th Illinois, killed at Shiloh; Major Ephriam J. Ellis. 33d Ohio; Lieutenant Jesse Ellis, 59th Ohio, and Captain Isaac Dryden, 24th Ohio, grandson of Samuel Ellis, fell at Chickamauga; Private William J. Ellis, Company G, 70th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, was the first man of that regiment killed at Shiloh. His head was carried away by a cannon ball. Drs. Samuel and Lewis Ellis were medical officers; Dryden Ellis, Captain 6th Ohio Cavalry; Amos Ellis, Lieutenant 70th Ohio; Anderson V. Ellis, Lieutenant 49th Ohio; William Ellis, Captain 16th Kentucky; Joseph Ellis, Lieutenant 175th Ohio. Major Ellis was the Captain of the Manchester Company in the 33d Ohio at the time he enlisted in 1861. He commanded his regiment at the battle of Stone River and had a horse killed under him. He was a most gallant and beloved officer, and had he lived, would have been put in command of one of the new Ohio regiments then organizing for the field. Of the private soldiers of the Ellis family, it is impossible to speak in detail. Quite a number of them lost their lives on the field of battle; some of them died in rebel prisons; others perished from wounds and diseases, and many of them lived to get back home to the green hills of the old Buckeye State and to rejoice that peace had come to our land, and that we were a reunited nation sovereign, great and free.
Anderson Nelson Ellis, A. M., M. D., son of Washington and Aris Ellis, was born at Ellis Landing, Sprigg Township, Adams County, Ohio December 19, 1840. In his twelfth year, he entered the public schools of Ripley where he remained six years, and during which times, those schools maintained a very high standard of excellence under such well known efficient instructors as Captain F. W. Hurth, Rev. W. H. Andrews, Prof. Ulysses Thompson and Gen. Jacob Ammen. He then entered the Freshman class at the Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio, where he remained until the breaking out of the War of the Rebellion, when he went to the front as a volunteer aide-de-camp on the staff of the late Major General William Nelson, and remained with him until his death. Subsequently, he was attached to the staff of his old teacher, Gen. Ammen, then commanding the fourth division of the Army of the Ohio under Gen. Don Carlos Buell. On the eighteenth of March. 1862. he was appointed Second Lieutenant of the 49th Ohio Regiment, Colonel William H. Gibson, which commission he resigned September 28, 1863, on account of failing health. Returning home, he at once entered Miami University and graduated the following year. In 1885, his Alma Mater conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts.
In the Spring of 1865, he began the study of medicine in the office of Dr. A. G. Goodrich, of Oxford, Ohio, and afterward attended medical lectures at Ann Arbor, Michigan; Pittsfield, Mass.; New York City and Cincinnati. At the Berkshire Medical College, he was assistant to the chair of Chemistry and graduated with the valedictory. Subsequently the board of trustees of that institution elected him Demonstrator of Anatomy. In March, 1868, the Ohio Medical College gave him an addendum degree. After some little private practice in Ohio and Kansas, Dr. Ellis entered the Ohio Regular Army as a medical officer, and spent five years on the plains and mountains of the Southwest. To one who had as yet known nothing beyond the haunts of civilization, the nomadic life of an army officer presented many attractions. While in New Mexico and Arizona, the Doctor became much interested in the history of the Pueblo Indians—that last remnant of the Aztec population of the days of the Spanish conquest, who present the pathetic spectacle of a civilization perishing without a historian to recount its rise, ruin and fall, its art, poetry, sorrow and suffering—a repetition of the silent death of the Mound Builders. He spent much of his time while off duty in exploring those ancient ruins that lie all over that interesting land. After leaving the service, he delivered many lectures and published a number of magazine articles on "The Land of the Aztec." From the very day of his graduation in medicine, Dr. Ellis had cast longing eyes at the admirable teaching and superior clinical advantages of the great European hospitals. In 1878, he resolved to realize this day dream of his life. He then went abroad and spent eighteen months in Heidelberg, Vienna and London, and afterward made a journey through Italy and France. While absent from the United States, he published many letters in the press, of his observations and travels in those countries, the most notable of which was "Pen and Ink Pictures of Venice. Florence, Rome, Naples, Pompeii, Leghorn and Genoa." Shortly after his return home to Cincinnati, he received the appointment of Assistant Physician at Longview Asylum, a position which he soon found irksome, but which led to an intimate acquaintance with nervous diseases and his appearance in many of the Courts of the State as a medical expert in insanity cases. In September, 1882, he was called to the chair of Laryngology in the Cincinnati College of Medicine and Surgery, which position he took and held until the close of the session 1890, and found himself to be an efficient and popular teacher. On December 10, 1893, Gov. Charles Foster appointed him Captain and Assistant Surgeon of the First Regiment, Ohio National Guards, Col. Charles B. Hunt, commanding, and on the thirty-first day of July, 1888, Gov. J. B. Foraker promoted him to the surgeoncy with the rank of Major, the vacancy being made by the promotion of the lamented Dr. E. A. Jones, to the position of Surgeon General of the State of Ohio.
In the Spring of 1894, Dr. Ellis determined, on account of failing health, to leave Cincinnati and go to his ancestral acres at Ellis Landing and devote his entire time and energy to the calling of the farmer. He had scarcely settled himself in the old homestead before patients came to his door in great numbers. Not wishing to return to Cincinnati, he has removed to Maysville, Kentucky, where he is actively engaged in the practice of his profession.
On the thirtieth of December, 1891, Dr. Ellis was married to Miss Laura Murphy, daughter of James Murphy, a prominent farmer and stockraiser of Butler County, Ohio. She is a graduate of the Oxford Female College of the class of 1873, and was for many years the Lady President of the Alumnae Association of that institution. One child, a boy now in his fifth year, has blessed their union, who bears the name of William Nelson, in honor of one of the heroes of the war.
From History of Adams County, Ohio from its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time - by Nelson W. Evans and Emmons B. Stivers - West Union, Ohio - Published by E. B. Stivers - 1900