Attleborough: Darwin Ellis

06/14/2009 12:10
attleboro
Darwin Ellis was born in Attleborough in 1806. The Ellis family was founded in Dedham by Richard Ellis, son of a Welsh immigrant. Darwin’s parents were George and Polly (Fisher). Polly was the daughter of Col. Daniel Fisher of Dedham, who’d fought at the Battle of Lexington and throughout the Revolution (and later, under Gen. Lincoln, in Shays’ Rebellion). (1) “They located on a farm in Attleboro, where they reared their family and spent the remainder of their lives.” George was “one of the most prominent and influential men of the community, and for one or more terms ably represented his district in the state legislature.” After 1816, George was a member and later a High Priest of the Adoniram Masonic Chapter. (2) George and Polly had nine children. (3)

Darwin’s brother William “learned the jeweler’s trade at Attleboro, serving a three years’ apprenticeship.” Darwin probably had a similar experience, judging from reports that he engraved patriotic Civil War tokens in his later life. Both Darwin and his son Jarvis E. Ellis worked for the Scovill Company, where Jarvis was a “noted engraver” and after sixty years of employment, “the acknowledged grandfather now of all the employees there.” (4) In 1860, Darwin Ellis and P. Hine patented a “Portable Match Case” in Waterbury, Connecticut. (5) Darwin married Mary Dana Jackson (b. 1807, m. 1832 in Attleboro), who died in Waterbury around 1846. They had at least three children, two of whom died in childhood in Waterbury. The Waterbury records don’t contain information of Darwin’s death. (6)

1. The Dedham Historical Register, Vol. IX, 1898, p. 116
2. Duane Hamilton Hurd, History of Bristol County, Massachusetts (Philadelphia: J.W. Lewis, 1883) p. 110.
3. The Biographical Record of Ogle County, Illinois (Chicago: S.J. Clarke, 1899), p. 267.
4. Ferdinando Fasce, An American Family (Columbus: Ohio State University, 2002), p. 65.
5. Joseph Anderson, The Town and City of Waterbury, Connecticut, Vol. II (New Haven: Price and Lee, 1896), p. 477.
6. Katharine A. Prichard, Ancient Burying0grounds of the Town of Waterbury, Connecticut (Waterbury: Mattatuck Historical Society, 1917), p. 48.

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