Jackson County IA Archives Biographies.....Ellis, James Whitcomb November 25, 1848 - 
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/ia/iafiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Ken Wright wright@prestontel.com August 19, 2010, 11:04 pm

Source: History of Jackson County, Iowa, 1910
Author: J. W. Ellis



HON. JAMES WHITCOMB ELLIS. 

The life record of Hon. James Whitcomb Ellis presents many and varied phases 
which have won him the respect, confidence and honor of his fellowmen, but 
perhaps no single act of his life has brought him more prominently before the 
people of Iowa than his recent work in securing from the general assembly, of 
which he is a member, an appropriation for the erection of a monument to Ansel 
Briggs, Iowa's first governor. In this he has builded better than he knew, for 
it stands as the visible evidence of the loyalty and patriotism of a man who 
recognizes the importance of the labors and public works of him who was first 
called to preside as chief executive of this commonwealth. 
While James Whitcomb Ellis is well known in Iowa and especially in Jackson 
county, his fellow townsmen will peruse again with pleasure the history of some 
of the events which constitute his life record. He was born near Danville, 
Hendricks county, Indiana, on the 25th of November, 1848. His parents, Jesse 
and Ailsea (Jeffers) Ellis, were both born near Frankfort, in Franklin county, 
Kentucky, and in 1832 emigrated to Indiana, whence they came to Jackson county, 
Iowa, in 1852. The paternal grandfather of our subject was a native of old 
Virginia and removed to Kentucky about the year 1800. His father was also a 
native of the Old Dominion. The maternal grandmother of J. W. Ellis was 
likewise a Virginian and A daughter of Edward Flathers, who was born in England 
in 1755 and came to Virginia when a small boy. He served three terms of 
enlistment in the Virginia militia during the Revolutionary war. After his 
marriage to Clara Legg, a Maryland lady, he emgirated to Kentucky about the 
beginning of the nineteenth century and from there to Hendricks county, 
Indiana, where he died in 1847, at the age of ninety-two years. His wife passed 
away in 1848, at the age of ninety-four years. The five Flathers brothers who 
came to Iowa in 1842— four of them to Jackson county—were grandsons of Edward 
and Clara (Legg) Flathers. 
Jesse and Ailsea (Jeffers) Ellis were parents of eleven children, eight of whom 
are still living, namely: Mary, who resides with her brother James; Fannie, who 
is the wife of Philip Hocher, of Boone county, Indiana, and has one child, a 
daughter; Isaac, of Ocosta, Washington, who married Jane Brush and has seven 
children who have reached adult age; James Whitcomb, of this review; William, 
unmarried, who is in the Klondike country; John, who is a merchant at 
Fairbanks, Alaska, and is a widower with two sons: Esther, who married M. L. 
Williams and has one son and one daughter, their home being now in Tacoma, 
Washington; and Stephen, who enlisted in Company B, Twenty-sixth Iowa Volunteer 
Infantry, and died at Nashville, Tennessee, December 20, 1863. 
James W. Ellis was reared on his father's farm and attended the country school 
until fourteen years of age, but in the school of experience he has been 
continually learning life's lessons and his mastery thereof has enabled him not 
only to cope with the problems of the business world but also to bring to a 
successful solution many questions which have effected the welfare and progress 
of his fellowmen, of his home community and the state at large. During the 
period of the Civil war he made several attempts to join the army and finally, 
when he was sixteen years of age, he did get to the front long enough to 
witness the terrible campaign from Culpepper to Petersburg in June, 1864. Then, 
by parental authority, exercised because of his youth, he returned home, but 
the military spirit was strong within him and in May, 1866, he enlisted for 
service on the frontier, went to Fort Leavenworth, joined a battalion of 
recruits and marched to Fort Union, New Mexico, under command of General George 
Sykes. He was assigned to Company H, Fifth United States Infantry, and sent to 
Fort Sumner, New Mexico, on the Navajo Indian reservation. He served in various 
capacities during the winter and the next spring the battalion to which he 
belonged was ordered back on the plains, as nearly all the plains tribes had 
gone on the warpath. The command marched to Fort Wallace, Kansas, near the 
Colorado line, and while there was attacked with cholera, which depleted the 
ranks nearly fifty per cent. After recovering from a mild attack of the dread 
disease, Mr. Ellis was sent with a detachment of his company to guard a mail 
station on the Smoky Hill stage line to Denver at Hugo Springs. The coming of 
cold weather drove the Indians to their winter quarters and the detachment was 
recalled, the company being ordered to Fort Hayes, a point which had just been 
reached by the railroad, while the fort at that time was only a collection of 
tents and government stores. The march was made in about eight inches of snow, 
which at night the men shoveled away, sleeping on the frozen ground, wrapped in 
their blankets. The next spring the company was sent to Fort Harker and from 
there to Camp Davison, near the mouth of the Little Arkansas. After carrying 
mail and dispatches to Fort Harker for several weeks Mr. Ellis was detailed to 
drive an ambulance for Colonel West, who was ordered with his troop of the 
Seventh United States Cavalry on a scout on the Solomon and Saline rivers and 
from that time he remained with the Seventh Cavalry in the campaigns of 1868 
and the winter campaigns of 1868-9. 
After serving three years Mr. Ellis returned home, engaged in farm work and in 
buying and cutting off timber lands. His life has always been an etxremely busy 
one, whether on the western frontier or in the pursuits of civil life as he has 
operated and managed his farm or conducted a growing fire insurance business. 
After his return from the west he continuously devoted his energies to farming, 
together with various side issues, until 1907, when he removed to Maquoketa. 
Since 1889, however, He has been engaged in the real estate and fire insurance 
business and particularly in the latter line has gained a gratifying clientage. 
Enjoying now the comforts that unfaltering diligence and capable management 
bring, he is not ashamed of the fact that in his youth he was familiar with the 
privations of pioneer life and that he started out upon his married life with 
little capital save a stout heart, willing hands, firm purpose and laudable 
ambition. 
It was on the 16th of October, 1870, that Mr. Ellis wedded Mary M. Forbes, a 
daughter and granddaughter of pioneers and a descendant on both sides from 
Revolutionary heroes. The death of Mrs. Ellis occurred March 3, 1907. She was 
born at Baraboo, Wisconsin, September 28, 1853, and was brought to Iowa by her 
parents, Henry Clay and Orpha Ann (Waldo) Forbes, the same year. Extended 
mention of Mrs. Ellis is made in the chapter on the Maquoketa Homecoming in the 
historical section of this work. Few women have been as sincerely loved and 
mourned in their home community. In a public address delivered concerning her 
it was said: "In the organization and the work of the Old Settlers' Society her 
interest and zeal were without limit. The most unselfish of human beings, she 
poured all of her strength into the lives of those about her and the work in 
which she was engaged, apparently unconscious of the sacrifice. At the 
hearthstone, in the moments of relaxation, her presence with her family was of 
rare superiority and dignity—both a benediction and an inspiration." Nine 
children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Ellis, of whom five have reached adult years 
and are living, all but one residing in Maquoketa. These are: Charles F. and 
Frank E., both of whom have families; Belle, at home; Jessie V., the wife of 
Fred Allbright, living near Des Moines; and Nellie, at home. 
While Mr. Ellis is recognized as a successful business man, he has never 
regarded the pursuit of wealth as the chief aim and end of life, although he 
has never found greater happiness than in ministering to the welfare and 
comfort of his family, and his neighbors have thus expressed it: "He is the 
best man to his family we ever knew." However, his activities have touched many 
interests and in many instances have proved of far-reaching benefit. He filled 
the office of justice of the peace for four years and was president of the 
South Fork township school board for twenty years. The cause of education has 
ever found in him an earnest and effective champion and he has been equally 
active in his interest in military affairs. For eight years he served on the 
Soldiers' Relief Commission, has been commander of A. W. Drips Post, G. A. R., 
commander of R. M. Anderson Command, No. 5, Union Veterans' Union, commander of 
the department of Iowa of the Union Veterans' Union and was honored with the 
second highest office in that organization when chosen deputy commander in 
chief of the national command of that order. Always interested in historical 
research, he has been secretary and treasurer of the Maquoketa Valley Pioneer 
and Old Settlers' Society for nearly twenty years and in April, 1903, organized 
the Jackson County Historical Society, of which he has since been secretary and 
curator. A public service which Mr. Ellis performed that won him in large 
measure the gratitude and appreciation of his fellow townsmen and many former 
residents of Maquoketa now livftig in all parts of the 'country was that which 
resulted in the "Homecoming of 1907." It was an occasion never to be forgotten 
by any who participated therein. Mr. Ellis was foremost in the movement which 
brought back to Maquoketa hundreds who had previously resided here and for whom 
most interesting entertainment was provided. A most interesting account of the 
homecoming is given in the historical section of this work. Mr. Ellis received 
substantial token of the appreciation of his fellow citizens in the gift of a 
beautiful silver set, which he prizes highly and of which he has every reason 
to be justly proud. 
Mr. Ellis has won more than local recognition as a writer, his authorship 
including a volume entitled Bygone Days, a history of pioneer times; Life on 
the Plains, published in serial form; and Personal Recollections of Custer. He 
has contributed many articles on various questions of public moment to the 
press during the past ten or twelve years and while traveling broadly over this 
country has written much concerning his trips for the press. He was 
instrumental in erecting a monument to Hon. Thomas Cox, a pioneer lawmaker, and 
following his election to the legislature on the democratic ticket —and he has 
always been a loyal advocate of the democracy—he secured an appropriation from 
the state of a thousand dollars wherewith to erect a monument to honor the name 
of Ansel Briggs, Iowa's first governor and a pioneer 
of Jackson county. He raised three hundred dollars by subscription in the 
county, brought the remains of the governor back from Omaha, Nebraska, and 
under the auspices of the Jackson County Historical Society there was unveiled, 
on the 22d of September, 1909, in the town of Andrew, in the presence of 
Governor Carroll, ex-Governor Larrabee, many members of the thirty- third 
general assembly and five thousand people, a splendid granite monument 
dedicated to Ansel Briggs. A full account of the celebration on that occasion 
is given in the historical section of this work, but it is fitting that mention 
be made of the part that Representative Ellis took in securing the monument. 
His interest in the movement was inspired by his grandmother, who kad made her 
home with his family the greater part of the time between 1886 and 1898 and who 
had lived a near neighbor of the Briggs family in the territorial times and had 
known the family since 1838. The remains of Governor Briggs were in an unmarked 
grave across the border of the state, while his wife and children were buried 
in the town that had been his home for more than thirty years. Believing that 
Iowa should pay honor to her first governor in placing his remains by the side 
of those of members of his family and by erecting a monument to his memory, Mr. 
Ellis started the movement. He introduced the first bill presented at the 
thirty-third session of the legislature, under title of House File, No. 1, by 
Ellis of Jackson. On that occasion Representative Boettger of Davenport 
said: "We may sing the praises and stand here and tell you of his untiring 
efforts, but words and music cannot express what Mr. Ellis endured until the 
bill so dear to him and you was finally signed by the governor. You may and 
should be proud of the man whose untiring efforts made it possible for you and 
me to pay homage to our first chief executive." Representative Balluff, after 
speaking of Mr. Ellis' untiring efforts in behalf of the monument, added: "I 
also wish to pay a deserved tribute to your able representative in another 
direction. You, as his neighbors, acquaintances and constituents, are well 
aware that he has no bad habits and, therefore, had little occasion to spend 
his time smoking in the cloak room. He could always be found in his seat paying 
strict attention to the proceedings and his ability to determine the right and 
wrong of the pending legislative bills was remarkable. It was quite noticeable 
that other members made frequent inquiries of Mr. Ellis as to the status of 
matters pending or the desirability of supporting or defeating the same, and I 
have heard it said that his judgment was uniformly right." Senator Wilson of 
Clinton county, on the same occasion, said: "I doubt very much if any member of 
either house or senate could have secured the appropriation at this time. . . . 
But he would not become discouraged and by his winning way and constant wrok 
success crowned his efforts and we are here today to do honor to the departed 
ex-governor and celebrate the victory of the gentleman from Jackson." 
No history of Mr. Ellis would be complete without mention of what has been 
termed "The Ellisonian Institute." From the time when a boy of four or five 
years he gathered the Indian flints and arrowheads in the fields of Jackson 
county he has been a collector of relics, strange, interesting and historical, 
and has secured almost the largest and most valuable collection of relics and 
curios in the state and one of the largest private collections in the world. It 
contains many relics of prehistoric people as well as of the Indians, many 
Civil war relics and interesting articles which were sent him by the American 
soldiers in the West Indies and in the Philippines during the Spanish-American 
war. His collection of firearms is said to be the best of its kind in the world 
and his swords, each with a history, include some used in the Revolutionary 
war, the Napoleonic wars and every war since. He has splendid 
fossilized,specimens of animal and plant life, costumes and the weapons from 
various lands, implements of industry showing the changes and improvements of 
two hundred years, together with autographs and autograph letters of famous 
people. It seems hardly possible that within his lifetime one man, without 
making this a business, should have brought together such a splendid 
collection, and it is Mr. Ellis' purpose to some day make a gift of this to 
county or state. 
In his home community, where best known, Mr. Ellis, by his genial manner, 
unfailing courtesy, helpful spirit and freedom from ostentation, has gained a 
circle of friends almost coextensive with the circle of his acquaintances. He 
continually has in hand some work for the benefit of another and has been 
particularly active in getting pensions for old soldiers or in securing their 
admission to the soldiers' home. His whole life has shown his devotion to his 
country and his love for and interest in the welfare of his fellowmen. 



File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ia/jackson/bios/ellis385gbs.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/iafiles/

File size: 16.4 Kb