Ellis, James W.(1848-1929)

ELLIS

Posted By: Ken Wright (email)
Date: 1/28/2008 at 23:52:50

Particles of Light
Jackson County and Its Authors

By
David L. Rosheim

1995

The Andromeda Press
Maquoketa, Iowa 52060

(Reprinted with permission)

James Whitcomb Ellis
(1848 – 1929)

J. W. Ellis was born near Danville, Indiana on November 25, 1848. He lived on his father’s farm and attended a country school until he was 14 when he entered “that great school of practical experience” which led him eventually to success in business. When the Civil War broke out, he tried to enlist and, at age 16, was at the front during Grant’s 1864 Campaign in Virginia, but his parents caused him to return home. In 1866, his obituary states he joined the Seventh Cavalry (Custer’s command). In reality, however, he actually joined the 5th U. S. Infantry Regiment, Co. H, and was stationed at Fort Sumner, New Mexico. He was discharged, according to the National Archives, in June, 1869 at Corpus Christi, Texas, having served the three years for which he had signed up. The Portrait and Biographical Album of Jackson County, Iowa (Chicago, Chapman Brothers, 1889, 329 pages) has an entry on him that says he served three years under the leadership of the ill-fated (that part is right) General Custer. “And though so young, his coolness and daring in the face of danger attracted the favorable attention of his brave commander, who twice promoted him, and recommended him warmly for a commission.” The historical record, however, fails to show any significant employment of the 5th infantry by Lt. Col. (actual postwar rank) George A. Custer. The entry in the 1889 Album differs from the obituary to such a degree that I wondered if I was reading about the same person. To be charitable, it was an age when people did not mind embroidering the events of their lives to make them more interesting. Records were not quite as accurate then and the subjects of a biography felt protected from the cold eye of history which searches out fact. But we will stick to facts. He was married October 16, 1870 to Mary Forbes, who died in 1907. The couple had nine children, four of whom survived Mr. Ellis. He was an insurance agent and was a member of numerous community organizations, including the Kiwanis, the Odd Fellows, the Masons, the Knights of Pythias, and the Congregational Church. He was a founding member of the Jackson County Historical Society and served as its secretary. He also served in the Iowa State Legislature as a Democratic state representative.

For many years he collected relics and oddities from all around the world, and also items significant in early Jackson County History and displayed these in his “Ellisonian Institute.” This collection in the Jackson County Annals (Published by the Jackson County Historical Society) and consisted of articles reprinted from the Jackson Sentinel in Maquoketa from 1906 to 1913. There were seven of these Annals. Jackson County is remarkable for having its own historical journal at so early a date. It is remarkable for having a historical journal at all. This we can fairly attribute to the energy of Mr. Ellis who gathered together a valuable assortment of articles for each issue as well as contributing memoirs of his own. These all have paper covers and average about 70 pages in length.

Earlier on in his writing career, he wrote a series of articles for the Jackson Sentinel which he called, “Life on the Plains,” One of these articles was reprinted in Annal 5, (May, 1907 – August, 1908):

“While stationed at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, in the fall of 1866, I was detailed on one occasion to drive an ambulance to convey a doctor from Fort Sumner to Fort Stanton, a distance of more than 100 miles. The doctor had come up from Albuquerque and had with him as part of his household a rather good looking young Mexican woman, and a negro boy for cook and general servant. In addition to the four mule ambulance that I drove there was a six mule team carrying the doctor’s outfit, and an escort of ten cavalrymen. The first day we drove out to Salt Creek, a distance of 12 or 15 miles, and camped, for the next drive was a long one, fully sixty-five miles to the next watering place which was called Stinking Springs, and the road for a large part of the way was extremely rough, being known as the Dry Hornado. It was customary for freight teams to carry water in kegs when traveling this road for the horses or cattle.

On the second morning out we got an early start with the ambulance and not having fear of Indians in such a desert we did not wait for the escort, but made the best time we could and arrived at Stinking Springs before three o’clock, fully two hours ahead of the escort. We found the water about the worst we had ever tried to use, but managed to drink coffee made with it. The next morning we started pretty early and by noon had reached the salt well near the Pass on the side of the Turkey Mountains. These wells seemed bottomless, the water being as clear as sea water and almost as salty. We cooked dinner and ate it and then crossed the range and came out into the valley in which Fort Stanton was situated.

We found two companies of soldiers stationed there – H Troop of the 3rd Cavalry and a Company of colored troops that had not been mustered out yet. Lieutenant Dean Monahan, a bright and fearless young officer was commandant at the Fort, and was a man fully intent on doing his duty as he saw it regardless of who was affected by it. Arriving at the Fort, I drove the doctor to the quarters assigned him, then took the team to the coral, and was assigned to the Cavalry troop for rations and bunk.

The next morning the commandant sent for me, and questioned me about the doctor’s family, wanted to know particularly about the relationship of the Mexican girl to the doctor. I told him that all I knew about it was that the doctor and the Mexican girl occupied the same bed on the route. That seemed to confirm his suspicions, and he immediately sent a Corporal and file of men to conduct the Mexican girl to the town of Placite about two miles, I think, from the Fort. The doctor was very angry at the Lieutenant for sending away his servant, as he claimed the Mexican to be, but the officer told him he was not sending his servant away but his mistress. The doctor followed up and secured a place for the woman, but was bent on revenge, for what he claimed to be unwarranted meddling with his domestic affairs. He drew up charges of a complaint, at least, and forwarded through the Lieutenant as commander of the Post, to the Commander of the District. This made the lieutenant more angry than he would have been and he preferred charges against the doctor and had him dismissed from the service.

At that time the Quartermaster at Fort Stanton was an officer of the Colored Troops stationed there, and Monahan discovered that he was disposing of all the government stores that he possibly could for his own benefit. He preferred charges against him and had him court marshaled. Monahan, who was retired as a Major a few years go, is now residing in Denver, and I have recently had some very pleasant correspondence with him.”

Mr. Ellis published In Bygone Days – Scraps From the Early Days of Jackson County. He put this booklet together from pieces published in the Maquoketa Record. It is a recounting of some of the more sensational early crimes in Jackson County. It seems to have served as a pilot project for the author’s two volume History of Jackson County (Chicago, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1910). The first volume is 705 pages in length and contains the county history as the old settlers recalled it. There is a no particular order to the book beyond the opening sections which concern the general history of Iowa, the foundation of Jackson County and its earliest settlers. There is also a useful section on the Civil War and the various regiments containing Jackson County men.

Then Volume One veers into a nearly 100 page section on crime in Jackson County. Much of this had already appeared in Bygone Days, and strikes the reader as being rather unusual in any county history, macabre perhaps especially since it is followed by a dozen pages of “Early Day Inquests” which deal with murder and suicides! This is not your run-of-the mill county history! Mr. Ellis finally does return to nostalgic and useful historical items and discusses, in due course, the foundation of the Jackson County Historical Society in 1903. Mr. Ellis was both the first secretary and the first curator.

This impressionistic history lasts until we get to page 401 and then we are back to the Bellevue War! This topic is discussed by various authors for more than 75 pages. The War had already been mentioned in the Crime section but was too notorious a topic to dismiss easily. One gets the impression after awhile that Jackson County had not been exactly a safe place to live! I’m certain Mr. Ellis did not intend to seem obsessed about the county’s grim side. In fact, the majority of the book is devoted to random sketches of what the county had been like in the very early days. Typical articles here are “Reminiscence of fifty years ago” and “Maquoketa township record fifty-nine years old.”

There is much usable information to be gathered from this book despite its somewhat inept presentation of historical facts. It’s certainly superior to the 1879 version in that it possesses objectivity toward the Bellevue War that the earlier history lacked. Volume II of the Ellis history (741 pages) is basically a book of mini-biographies of the more prominent local residents and is of use largely to the genealogists. Mr. Ellis should not be slighted. He was not a professional historian and did a massive amount of work in collecting and publishing accounts of Jackson County which otherwise may well have been lost to us forever. One only wishes it had been arranged with more care and that more emphasis had been placed on the early histories of the more obscure towns of the county, ones that had, in some cases, already faded away by the time this history was published.

James W. Ellis was stricken with the flu in March, 1929 and died April 9. His contributions to the life and the history of his community were recognized at his death, and well deserve remembrance.

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