South Onondaga and Vicinity to 1904

South Onondaga and Vicinity to 1904

Part VI : Family Records

Alexander Dwelle Ellis

Submitted by L. Fleck


    Alexander Dwelle Ellis, son of Albert and Jane Wells Ellis, was born upon the Ellis homestead near South Onondaga in the year 1835. The paternal grandfather, Major Levi Ellis, a native of Hebron, Conn., married Silance *Sawyer , Pittsfield, Mass., and he journeyed with her and two small children, Josiah L. and Alonzo, in an ox cart into the wilderness of New York in the year 1805, locating upon the small clearing that he had previously made and upon which he had built a log cabin. This farm site has since then been known as the Deacon Levi Ellis homestead, and there tow successive generations of this branch of the Ellis family have been reared.

    In 1819 he organized the first Sunday school at South Onondaga. The first district common school embracing this farm was held in a room set apart in the new frame house erected by him upon the site of the aforesaid log cabin. In his subsequent public service and church work Deacon Levi became generally known as a high minded Christian gentleman.
The father and mother of A. D. Ellis were active, industrious, upright citizens; they were successful at farming, their home was hospitable and cheerful, and they lived contentedly in the town of Onondaga to the end. They are buried in the family lot in Oakwood cemetery.

    There were five children born to this family circle upon the old homestead. One, Sarah, fourth in the order of births, died in her third year. The three succeeding A. d. Ellis in the order of birth are now living, are James M. Ellis of Syracuse, Fanny Ellis Upton of Rochester, and Jenny Ellis Hinsdale of Amboy, N. Y.  All were educated in the public schools and the academies at Onondaga Valley and Homer, N.Y.

    When A. D. Ellis was a child his father took him along from the farm ten miles away to attend with him a Jerry Rescue convention in Wieting Hall, Syracuse, N.Y. The hall was packed like sheep in a car-all seemed to be standing. As to what was said or done or who the speakers were Mr. Ellis cannot now remember; but when a song was called for, his father lifted him from the floor to his shoulder. At this instant, a mortal came with dignity, in simple garb, to the fore front of the rostrum, and to Mr. Ellis’s childish sense he was the image of God. He was black as midnight. He stood erect, and his eyes were lustrous in black and white. As he opened his wide mouth in song his pearly teeth shone like stars in the blue black of heaven. All seemed gravely interested, and stood with bated breath as though a human soul was held in his balance. Mr. Ellis can remember but a few of that negro’s melody, and these few words seem to have come to him now as the chorus:

“The hounds are baying on my track,
Say, Christian, will you drive them back?”
 And he rounded down his foot with a whack: it resounded to the farthest corner of the hall:
  “Wherever there’s a will there’s a way.”

     Mr. Ellis was awed by the sight, by the song, and by the singer, and wondered what they would do with him. Men looked at each other speechless and turned away with their eyes brimful of tears.

     This was Mr. Ellis’s first lesson in patriotism. “We see that they trusted in God,” he says now. “So may we-and keep our powder dry.”

     Mr. A. D. Ellis was for several years associated as a member of the firm Beers, Ellis and Soule in the publication of local historical works, maps, atlases, in the city of New York. He is a partner of W. S. Roe in the banking house Roe & Ellis, at Wolcott, N.Y.

     In the spring of 1874 he with Chas. S. Upton of Rochester, N. Y., purchased a considerable tract of land lying along the N.Y.C. and H.R. railroad in the town of Dewitt, which lands the following year they layed out liberally in lots, blocks, streets, and avenues, indicating the proposed town site. In the winter of 1875-6 Mr. Ellis prepared and published a map, the first that had been made of the hopeful hamlet, and suggesting a name, printed as the title East Syracuse. In the year 1881 he, with Rhesa Griffin, C. E., of Syracuse, made a survey defining the lines of the rapidly growing town. These were duly adopted by the citizens, and a village was incorporated in the memorable name given above.

     From the first Mr. Ellis has been active, progressive, and truly loyal to the best interests of East Syracuse. The several churches and the school owe much of their present advantages and prosperity to his efforts and liberality.

     With a view to simplify and give himself more time with neighborly people, his friends, and his books, Mr. Ellis has recently parted with his orange groves, cement plaster mines, and mills in California, and the greater portion of his pastoral lands in Kansas. He hopes however to continue his annual migrations to Kansas indefinitely; for as he says he likes her temperate, industrious, hopeful people; and he feels himself more in league with verdant, billowy plains and the peaceful herds, the rocks and streams, the bees and birds, than with those who seem to live as by accident or stealth; or with insatiate desire, worry, and struggle for wealth and fame in crowded cities. In politics Mr. Ellis says naively that he is a prohibition republican; that his politics was created by home influence when a child, and the thrilling memories of speeches and songs, of those ardent teachers, patriots, and philanthropists of the long ago. He says he thinks the duration of this nation will be determined by what we put into our schools and cities. He likes to recall an incident in his boyhood time where his teacher, Miss Williams, afterward, Mrs. Newman, sought to have him study the life and character of Washington.

* Note that Silance’s maiden name was actually Lawrence


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30 January 2000