Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1915
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 519
WILLIAM C. ELLIS

The Ellis family are of Welsh descent and were among the early settlers of Harrison county, Iowa. Upon coming to this country the family first located in Brown county, Ohio, and gradually moved westward until some of the family located in Harrison county, Iowa, in the early fifties. William C. Ellis has been a resident of this county since he was twelve years of age and has been a life-long farmer of Little Sioux township.

William C. ELLIS, the son of Hiram and Eliza (PORTER) ELLIS, was born January 24, 1859, in Putnam County, Illinois. His parents were both natives of Brown county, Ohio, Hiram Ellis being the son of John and Hannah (MARTIN) ELLIS. Hannah Martin was a native of Kentucky. The Porters were from Pennsylvania and Eliza (PORTER) ELLIS, the mother of William C., was a daughter of James and mary (PETTIJOHN) PORTER. John Ellis died in Ohio in 1849 of the Asiatic cholera, and in the early fifties his widow, Anna Ellis, took her children and started west. They went down the Ohio river, up the Mississippi and Missouri rivers to Council Bluffs, Iowa, then known as Kanesville. Here they landed and came by team to Harrison county.

Hiram Ellis was married soon after his father's death in 1849, and went to Illinois to live in 1854. He moved to Iowa in march 1871, and rented land in Harrison county for the first year. He then bought a farm in Little Sioux township and at the time of his death, July 23, 1888, owned 175 acres of land in the township. Ten children wre born to Hiram Ellis and wife, four of whom died in infancy.

After his father's death, William C. Ellis continued to reside on the old home farm with his mother for about thirteen years. The paternal estate was then sold and the proceeds divided among the heirs. At that time, William C. and his mother bought his present farm of 200 acres, one-fourth of a mile south of Little Sioux. His mother continued to reside with William C. until her death July 24, 1914, being past 81 years of age at that time. She was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, as had been her husband, and both were active workers in the church.

Mr. Ellis has never married. He is a member of the Little Methodist Episcopal Church and is active in all church and Sunday school work. He has been superintendent of the Sunday school for the past ten years. In politics, he has always given his support to the Republican party, but has never been desirous of holding public office. Mr. Ellis is a man of high character and sterling qualities, and well merits the high esteem in which he is held by those who know him.

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