William Ellison
William Ellison was born in Manchester, Ohio, June 19, 1796. His father, John Ellison, was born in Ireland in 1752, the son of John Ellison, born in Ireland in 1730. John Ellison, father of our subject, located at Manchester and purchased land extensively. His wife was Mary Bratton, born in Ireland, September 28. 1767 and died in Manchester in her one hundreth year.
John Ellison and Mary Bratton were married in Ireland. They had eight children who grew to maturity and eight who died in infancy. He died February 21, 1826, at the age of seventy-four years. He made a will drawn by a clergyman, and after he was dead thiry years there was extensive and expensive litigation to construe it and determine its meaning. Moral : Never have a will drawn by any other than a lawyer. From the time he came of age until 1831, our subject was engaged in the commission, shipping and forwarding business at Manchester, Ohio, in connection with his brother, David Ellison. At that time he went to Lawrence County as the manager of Mt. Vernon Furnace and became a member of the firm of Campbell, Ellison & Company, known all over southern Ohio. He retained his interest in that firm until his death. He returned to Manchester in 1835 and from that time was practically retired from business. He was married to Mary Patton, of Ross County, in 1827. She died in 1828, leaving no surviving child.
Mr. Ellison was married to Mary Keys Ellison, whose father, John Ellison, Junior, was a full cousin to William Ellison, on June 19, 1833. She was born January 25, 1812. They had the following children: Mary Ann, who married Rev. D. M. Moore: Sarah Jane, married Archibald Means; Robert Hamilton, who has a separate sketch herein, and Julia, who married John A. Murray. William Ellison died November 1, 1865, and his wife, May 14, 1888.
William Ellison was six feet, three inches in height, thin and spare. He possessed great natural dignity and equipose of character. He thought much and said little. He was a man of the strongest convictions. Nothing could swerve him from a course he believed to be right. In politics, he was first a Whig, and then an Abolitionist. He was a Republican from the organization of that party and from that time, until 1864, took an active interest in politics. In 1855, he and E. P. Evans were the delegates from Adams County to the State Republican Convention. He attended the National Republican Convention at Philadelphia in 1856. He also attended the Republican State Convention in 1857 and was a member of the Committee on Resolutions. He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention at Baltimore in 1864. He kept up all the activities of life as long as his health permitted. He joined the Presbyterian Church at the age of twenty and lived up to its teachings faithfully and conscientiously all his life. He was a superintendent of the Sabbath school for over thirty years and a ruling elder in the church for over forty years. He was never absent from Sabbath school, the church or the weekly prayer meeting unless he was sick or absent from home. It was a fixed principle of his life never to allow any secular business to interfere with his social or private Christian duties. He often contributed one-third of the minister's salary in cash and donated food, etc., equal to one-half more. The incidental expenses of the church, when not paid in full, were made up by him. For many years prior to his death, he was regarded as the wealthiest man in Adams County, and he devoted much time to public and private charity. He was constantly looking after the poor and contributing to benevolent objects, but it was all done quietly and unostentatiously. He daily visited the poor, the sick and the afflicted and administered to their wants, temporal and spiritual. He was much given to hospitality and was a most kind and generous friend. He had some grave financial troubles and some of the most harrassing social troubles, but he bore them all with the greatest equanimity and fortitude. In them all, he was like Job—he sinned not nor charged God foolishly.
On his death-bed, his religion stood him well. He knew he was to die. He disposed of all his worldly business days before his death and would not refer to it afterward. When he felt the near approach of the last enemy, he sent for all his family and bade them a calm farewell. Among them was his mother in her ninety-eighth year. He was as calm and self-possessed as though death were nothing but the passing from one room to another. After giving a suitable message to each, he took his right hand and felt the pulse of his left wrist. After watching it for a moment, he said "Almost gone," replaced his right hand by his side and soon after died, most calmly. His faith in the religion he had lived was most complete. His dying hours were the most sublime of any Christian's death in Manchester before or since. At his funeral all the people turned out and all the poor were there and wept at his grave. Then and not until then were his benefactions to the poor known and they were told by recipients themselves. The writer was at his funeral and the grief of those whom he had befriended seemed as great as those of the members of his family. Till the people stood by his open grave, the extent of his good works in Manchester was not known. Thirty-four years have passed since that memorable funeral and the place of William Ellison in the church and community of Manchester have not been refilled. No one who has come after him has been able to do the good he did. To say that William Ellison was the best citizen in Adams County in his time would offend none who were cotemporary with him, for all would concede it. It is to be hoped that the memory of his pure and upright life and his kind and good deeds may long remain fresh and green with the people of Adams County.
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