Biography of 	Ellis, Caswell P. Orleans Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by 	Frances Ball Turner December 1997

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History of Louisiana, by Chambers
Vol. III, pg. 374

Caswell P. Ellis.  Three generations of the Ellis family have successively
applied their energies and commercial talent to the cotton business at New
Orleans.  A cotton broker of long and enviable standing, not only in New
Orleans but in other world exchanges, was the late Caswell P. Ellis, Sr.,
who died June 29, 1924.  He was founder and head of the firm of C. P. Ellis
& Company, cotton brokers.

He was born on Oakhill plantation in St. Helena Parish, Louisiana, March
13, 1858, and was sixty-six years of age at the time of his death.  The
Ellis family is of English ancestry, and has been identified with the South
since Colonial times.  Caswell P. Ellis was a son of Richard M. Ellis, who
before the Civil war was a cotton merchant at New Orleans, having branch
houses at Grand Gulf, Rodney and Black Hawk, Mississippi.

Caswell P. Ellis lived his youth in a period marked by war and
reconstruction.  His education was supplied by private tutors and by the
public schools of New Orleans.  He was indebted for some of his training to
such well known educators as Percival, Calhoun and Seaman.  In 1876, at the
age of eighteen, he went to work for a wholesale grocery house and in 1878
was retained to liquidate the firm.  After completing this work in 1880 he
became connected with the cotton firm of J. D. Peet & Company and a few
years later was admitted to partnership.

Mr. Ellis in 1895 organized the cotton brokerage business of C. P. Ellis &
Company, and remained its active and dynamic head for over a quarter of a
century, making it known as one of the reputable houses handling cotton in
all the cotton exchanges of the world.  They were members of the Cotton
Exchanges of New Orleans, New York and Liverpool.  Mr. Ellis had many other
financial connections, including the Hibernia Bank & Trust Company of New
Orleans, of which he was vice president.  He possessed and exemplified a
fine public spirit and civic idealism, so that he gave much of his time and
efforts to reform and civic movements.  He was one of those who worked
unceasingly to drive the Louisiana lottery from the state.  He was
associated with a number of civic bodies, including the carnival
organizations, and was a member of the Boston and New Orleans Country
Clubs.

Mr. Ellis married, February 17, 1881, Miss Nellie Mallam, of New Orleans.
She and five children survived him.  These children are: Caswell P., Jr.;
Hazel, wife of Joseph M. Woodward, of New Orleans; Nellie, wife of John R.
Murchison, of Wilmington, North Carolina; Richard Mallam, a member of the
firm C. P. Ellis & Company; and Walker M., of New York.

Caswell P. Ellis, Jr., was born and reared in New Orleans and for a number
of years has been associated with the cotton firm of his father and
succeeded to the head of that business after his father's death.  The firm
has its offices in the Hibernia Bank Building.