ELLIS FAMILY

Waynesville, Ohio ~ Connections with the Past

Samuel Heighway from Shropshire, England founded Waynesville, Ohio in 1797. His settlement was honed out of the woods and clung tenaciously to the side of a steep hill overlooking the flood plain of the meandering Little Miami River. It was a tiny hamlet of a few log cabins and a tavern encircled by a dense and undisturbed wilderness. However, Waynesville’s growth, and the settlement of the surrounding area, would be phenomenal during its first decade due to the influx of pioneers.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Eldon C. "Tootie" Ellis ~ The Ellis, Curtis, Sellers, and Simpson Families

September 14, 1917 ~ September 13, 2002

"Tootie" Ellis was the only son of Carrington (known as "Toot") and Ethel McKnight Ellis who lived first in Waynesville, Ohio and then in Crosswick. "Tootie" was a member of the 1935 graduating class of Waynesville High School. Tootie was a high school track star and he was the first inductee into the Waynesville High School Hall of Fame. He worked for the Fairley Hardware Store in Waynesville for about 32 years. He also worked for Don Ellis at the Ellis Super Value grocery store for many many years. Tootie founded "Ellis Fibre Glass Race Car Bodies and Specialities" that was located in Lebanon, Ohio. He specialized in midget, three-quarter and micro cars.

Patrick and Adeline Ellis had three children: Anna (who married James Fletcher), Gladman, and Patrick. Anna and her husband James Fletcher and their two children Adaline and Almanza lived with Patrick and Adeline Ellis. See, Federal Census1880; Wayne, Warren, Ohio; Roll: T9_1075; Enumeration District: 79; Image: 0397.

• "Simms" Curtis, who was married to Letitia Sellars, and,
• Gladman Ellis, who was married to Martha Jane Sellers. Martha was born January 15, 1859 in Raleigh, North Carolina. When she was one year old she came with her parents to Ohio (1860) and settled near New Burlington. She is the daughter of Jacob Sellers (1817-1881) and Laura Williams Sellers (1831-1918), as are Letitia and Eunice.

lived in the Crosswick area.

• Charles Curtis, who was married to Eunice Sellers

lived between Harveysburg and Wilmington.

Tootie's parents, Carrington and Ethel McKnight Ellis first lived on a farm that is now part of the village of Waynesville. The land they had was the block between North and Chapmans Streets and Fifth Street and Dayton Road. Then in the early 1920s, the Carrington Ellis family moved to Crosswick. Besides raising their son Tootie and their daughter Frieda M. Ellis Miller, Carrington and Ethel also raised three foster children from Shawen Acres orphanage in Dayton, Ohio.

An old tobacco barn which was located behind the Waynesville High School on Dayton Road (see picture above) was originally owned by "Simms" Curtis, a great uncle of Tootie. Patrick and Carrington Ellis raised tobacco and it was stored in this barn. The barn was sold and moved into town. It was first used to house the mules that drove the "school hacks". When buses replaced the hacks, the barn was once again moved, now behind the high school, and used as a garage. Eventually, the old barn was remodeled inside and became the gymnasium for the high school.

Ethel McKnight Ellis, Tootie's mother, was born at New Burlington, Ohio on April 4, 1895, the daughter of John McKnight and Melissa Simpson McKnight. Ethel's grandparents were Joseph McCoy Simpson (1840-1913) and Amanda Gilson Simpson (1845-1923) from Cumberland, Guernsey Co., Ohio. Joseph was a soldier with the 27th U. S. Colored Troops during the Civil War.

Joseph and Amanda Simpson moved to Warren County, Ohio from Guernsey Co. to a place named "Brimstone Hollow". It was known as Canbytown, too. It was a mill town on Caesar's Creek not far north of Harveysburg. The location is now underwater, under Caesar's Creek Lake. Crosswick, Canbytown, and Harveysburg were three African-American communities in the immediate area around Waynesville. They were within a few miles of each other (see map below).

Thank you to local historian Dorothy Carter for sharing her knowledge about Tootie and all the families mentioned in this article.

Gladman Ellis went to the one-room school house for African-Americans in Crosswick. The Curtis family also went to school there:

Tootie's father Carrington Patrick was the son of Gladman Henry Ellis (1856-1934) and Martha Jane Sellers, a daughter of Jacob and Laura Williams Sellers. Gladman was born February 8, 1856 near Lynchburg, Va. He came to Ohio at the age of 18 months with his parents Patrick Henry Ellis and Adeline Henry Ellis in 1857. They came to Ohio via the train. Patrick Henry Ellis was a painter by trade. The Ellis' settled on a 63 acre farm in the Crosswick community one mile north of Waynesville on Bellbrook Road. In 1860, 45 African-Americans lived in Crosswick. The community was large enough at the end of 1859 to establish the "Crosswick Colored School".

Tootie's great grandfather, Patrick Henry Ellis and his grandmother Adeline Henry were free African-American who lived near Lynchburg, Virginia.

Why our family left Kentucky in 1862

Civil War

     Kentucky was a slave state with many pro-slavery advocates. This became apparent during the Mexican War (1849-1848). A number of Kentuckians migrated to Texas and participated in the Texas Revolution. Most Kentuckians welcomed the Mexican War and there were more volunteers from Kentucky than the army could take. The First Kentucky Mounted Regiment and the Second Kentucky Foot Regiment, who fought with Zachary Taylor, were most famous of the Kentucky regiments. Over 5,000 Kentuckians volunteered for the war, 77 were killed in action, and 509 died of disease or accident.

     There was also a formidable number of abolitionists in the state. Anti-slavery advocates were present prior to statehood. Presbyterian minister, David Rice, led the state's anti-slavery movement during the 1792 Kentucky constitutional convention, but the movement was put down when the constitution allowed slavery in the state. By 1827 there were eight anti-slavery societies present in Kentucky. Colonization societies were another aspect of the anti-slavery movement. The Kentucky Colonization Society formed in 1829, and by 1832 there were 31 colonization societies. These societies did not attempt to free slaves, instead they believed in gradual emancipation. They wanted to solve the slave issue by transporting all African-Americans to Liberia, Africa. Many black Kentuckians were taken there, and in 1851 the General Assembly required all freed slaves to leave the state.

     In 1860, after Abraham Lincoln was elected president, many slave owners were worried they might lose their right to own slaves. As a result, many slave states decided to secede from the United States to protect what they believed to be their constitutional right. Kentucky decided to remain neutral. The state was successful in remaining neutral for a number of months before finally siding with the Union. There is no accurate account of how many Kentuckians fought in the war, but it is estimated that 25,000 to 40,000 fought for the Confederacy, and 90,000 to 100,000 fought for the Union.

     Kentucky witnessed a lot of military action during the war, including a number of invasions. John Hunt Morgan led a raid through Kentucky in 1862. The group included 370 Kentuckians, recruiting 300 more during the raid. During the raid, 17 towns were captured and a good amount of Union supplies were destroyed. Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of the Department of East Tennessee, wanted to invade Kentucky because he believed there were many Kentuckians who supported the Confederacy and were waiting for an opportunity to join. On August 13, 1862 Smith made his move into Kentucky and captured Lexington and Frankfort. Raids continued throughout the war with the intention of distracting Union troops from the main front. Guerilla warfare, attacks carried out without official sanction, also took place in Kentucky.


Figure 3 Civil War Battle Sites


Reconstruction

     The Emancipation Proclamation did not apply to Kentucky or Delaware because they were slave states who joined with the Union, therefore not in rebellion. At the end of the war there were 65,000 black Kentuckians still enslaved. Many slaves left Kentucky during the war in quest of freedom, but those who stayed had to wait until the 13th Amendment was passed on December 18, 1865 to gain their freedom. When freedom came, blacks flocked to the cities to escape their former masters. Lexington's black population rose 130 percent between 1860 and 1870.

     Violence was an all too common occurrence during the Reconstruction period. Many blacks were run out of town. In Gallatin County 500 blacks were forced across the border into Ohio. Regulators and Ku Klux Klan members terrorized blacks throughout Kentucky, and between 1867 and 1871, more than 100 African Americans were lynched, and many others were killed by other acts of violence.

     The Freedmen's Bureau was set up throughout the south to help freed slaves start their new lives. They provided food and clothing, operated hospitals, and gave legal advice. The most important achievement of the Freedmen's Bureau was the school system they set up. In 1867 there were 97 schools with 117 teachers and 5,610 students. By 1869, Kentucky was home to 250 schools with 10,360 students. Eighty percent of the teachers hired in Kentucky to teach black students were black, unlike the Confederate South where predominantly white teachers were hired to teach black students. Violence reached into the school system as well; students were beaten and sometimes killed. Voting wasn't as restricted for blacks in Kentucky as it was farther south, and some blacks were even elected into political offices.

Life in Post-Civil War Kentucky

     Kentucky was a predominantly rural state, which resulted in many isolated and uneducated Kentuckians. In 1870, one quarter of Kentuckians over the age of ten were illiterate. This high illiteracy rate resulted in a very strong oral tradition. Many stories circulated of occultism and supernatural occurrences. In 1869 a woman in Owen County went on trial, accused of being a witch.

     Compared to the rest of the country, the population in Kentucky remained stagnant. This was due to constant out migration. The "new immigration" of eastern and southern Europeans to America did not touch Kentucky, except for a small presence attracted to the state's coalfields. Immigrant populations concentrated on the Ohio River cities of Covington, Newport, and Louisville. In these towns twenty percent of the population was foreign born. The foreigners in these areas were mainly Germans and Irish who came to America before the Civil War. Other parts of the state experienced no foreigners at all, and as of 1910, ninety percent of the population was native.

     The second half of the 19th century was also a time of much violence in Kentucky. Ku Klux Klan activity had somewhat died down, but the name was attached to many small regulator groups. The number of lynchings rose during this time. Between 1875 and 1900, 166 people were lynched in Kentucky, two-thirds of whom were black. These lynchers did not usually wear masks so their identities were often known, but still they were seldom punished. Feud violence also became a problem in Kentucky. In the Appalachians, families would carry on feuds for many years. The Rowan County War of the 1880s, also known as the Martin-Tolliver-Logan Feud, resulted in twenty deaths and sixteen injuries over a three-year period. The longest standing feud in all of the Appalachians was the Amis-Strong-Little Feud, which began in 1874 and ended in 1912. These feuds fed the stereotype of the Appalachian hillbilly, an ignorant, backward hick who put down his rifle only to pick up his jug of moonshine. Newspapers extended this stereotype to all Kentuckians, giving Kentucky a reputation during the later years of the 19th century that would last for decades.

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By Rickie Lazzerini
Historian

Eldon C. "Tootie" Ellis ~ The Ellis, Curtis, Sellers, and Simpson Families

Waynesville, Ohio ~ Connections with the Past

Samuel Heighway from Shropshire, England founded Waynesville, Ohio in 1797. His settlement was honed out of the woods and clung tenaciously to the side of a steep hill overlooking the flood plain of the meandering Little Miami River. It was a tiny hamlet of a few log cabins and a tavern encircled by a dense and undisturbed wilderness. However, Waynesville’s growth, and the settlement of the surrounding area, would be phenomenal during its first decade due to the influx of pioneers.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Eldon C. "Tootie" Ellis ~ The Ellis, Curtis, Sellers, and Simpson Families

September 14, 1917 ~ September 13, 2002

"Tootie" Ellis was the only son of Carrington (known as "Toot") and Ethel McKnight Ellis who lived first in Waynesville, Ohio and then in Crosswick. "Tootie" was a member of the 1935 graduating class of Waynesville High School. Tootie was a high school track star and he was the first inductee into the Waynesville High School Hall of Fame. He worked for the Fairley Hardware Store in Waynesville for about 32 years. He also worked for Don Ellis at the Ellis Super Value grocery store for many many years. Tootie founded "Ellis Fibre Glass Race Car Bodies and Specialities" that was located in Lebanon, Ohio. He specialized in midget, three-quarter and micro cars.

Tootie's great grandfather, Patrick Henry Ellis and his grandmother Adeline Henry were free African-American who lived near Lynchburg, Virginia.

Tootie's father Carrington Patrick was the son of Gladman Henry Ellis (1856-1934) and Martha Jane Sellers, a daughter of Jacob and Laura Williams Sellers. Gladman was born February 8, 1856 near Lynchburg, Va. He came to Ohio at the age of 18 months with his parents Patrick Henry Ellis and Adeline Henry Ellis in 1857. They came to Ohio via the train. Patrick Henry Ellis was a painter by trade. The Ellis' settled on a 63 acre farm in the Crosswick community one mile north of Waynesville on Bellbrook Road. In 1860, 45 African-Americans lived in Crosswick. The community was large enough at the end of 1859 to establish the "Crosswick Colored School".

Patrick and Adeline Ellis had three children: Anna (who married James Fletcher), Gladman, and Patrick. Anna and her husband James Fletcher and their two children Adaline and Almanza lived with Patrick and Adeline Ellis. See, Federal Census1880; Wayne, Warren, Ohio; Roll: T9_1075; Enumeration District: 79; Image: 0397.

Gladman Ellis went to the one-room school house for African-Americans in Crosswick. The Curtis family also went to school there:

• "Simms" Curtis, who was married to Letitia Sellars, and,
• Gladman Ellis, who was married to Martha Jane Sellers. Martha was born January 15, 1859 in Raleigh, North Carolina. When she was one year old she came with her parents to Ohio (1860) and settled near New Burlington. She is the daughter of Jacob Sellers (1817-1881) and Laura Williams Sellers (1831-1918), as are Letitia and Eunice.

lived in the Crosswick area.

• Charles Curtis, who was married to Eunice Sellers

lived between Harveysburg and Wilmington.

Tootie's parents, Carrington and Ethel McKnight Ellis first lived on a farm that is now part of the village of Waynesville. The land they had was the block between North and Chapmans Streets and Fifth Street and Dayton Road. Then in the early 1920s, the Carrington Ellis family moved to Crosswick. Besides raising their son Tootie and their daughter Frieda M. Ellis Miller, Carrington and Ethel also raised three foster children from Shawen Acres orphanage in Dayton, Ohio.

An old tobacco barn which was located behind the Waynesville High School on Dayton Road (see picture above) was originally owned by "Simms" Curtis, a great uncle of Tootie. Patrick and Carrington Ellis raised tobacco and it was stored in this barn. The barn was sold and moved into town. It was first used to house the mules that drove the "school hacks". When buses replaced the hacks, the barn was once again moved, now behind the high school, and used as a garage. Eventually, the old barn was remodeled inside and became the gymnasium for the high school.

Ethel McKnight Ellis, Tootie's mother, was born at New Burlington, Ohio on April 4, 1895, the daughter of John McKnight and Melissa Simpson McKnight. Ethel's grandparents were Joseph McCoy Simpson (1840-1913) and Amanda Gilson Simpson (1845-1923) from Cumberland, Guernsey Co., Ohio. Joseph was a soldier with the 27th U. S. Colored Troops during the Civil War.

Joseph and Amanda Simpson moved to Warren County, Ohio from Guernsey Co. to a place named "Brimstone Hollow". It was known as Canbytown, too. It was a mill town on Caesar's Creek not far north of Harveysburg. The location is now underwater, under Caesar's Creek Lake. Crosswick, Canbytown, and Harveysburg were three African-American communities in the immediate area around Waynesville. They were within a few miles of each other (see map below).

Thank you to local historian Dorothy Carter for sharing her knowledge about Tootie and all the families mentioned in this article.

The annual West /Ellis Family Reunion was held July 14th 2012 at the Greene County Fairgraounds Park in Xenia Oh. There were 85 family members and guests in attendance. The oldest being Marvie West Sr. at 94 and his little sister Ruth Coffey who will be 92 in August. The youngest was 5 months old. The daughter of Ryan West. Gary and Shanda West traveled the furtherest this year at 385 miles from St Louis.

CHILDREN OF PLEASANT AND MARY FRANCIS

Oldest Child is Motty Sylvester West born 3/29/1877 - 1962, Married Hattie Myrtle Ellis 1/21/1903 -1963 in Warren County , near Waynesville. For most of us, Motty is our Grandfather and Hattie(MaaMam) is our Grandmother. The listing of their children are as follows.

Dorothy 1907 - 1964
Vernon  1908- 1981
Raymond 1911- 1993
Martha   1913 -  1992
Marvie  1918
Ruth      1921
Joseph   1924 - 2004
Daisy     1928 - 1966
Thomas  1930 - 1993

There were 3 other children born between Marvie and Martha that did not survive.

2nd Child of Pleasant and Mary
 Ada West  Born Nov 1880- 1964 Married Andrew Portis in 1900. Andrew born 1880
Children of Ada and Andrew Portis  4 Children

1. Esther Born 1900 died 1917 , 17 yrs of age. Buried in Ferncliff Cem next to Pleasant and Mary Francis

2. Adolphus - Born 1902 Adolphus married Dorothy and had 3 kids listed , named Dorothy 1924, Adolphus born 1925, Aquilla born 1927, They could possibly still be living and have decendents who would be our cousins in Springfield area.

3. Ambrose JR AKA Andrew - Born 1904 died Feb 1982
Ambrose Jr married Roma Simmons born 1909 and had 2 children named :

  1.. Donald Portis Born 1926

  2. Ann born 1928

4th Child of Ada and Andrew
Lester Born 1908  died Jan 1 1970 in Long Term Care Facility in Springfield , Oh.
Lester married Estella Scott born 1910 married on 27 Sept 1927 Not sure if they had children.

Ambrose or Andrew  as well as a Portis cousin were listed as prisioners in 1930 in Springfield, Oh not sure what they were locked up for or how long they served. Not sure is Ambrose Jr or father.

So it is possible that we have cousins by the name of Portis still living in the Springfield area.

The third Child born to Pleasant and Mary is
Glenna West  Born 7/18/1883
Glenna married Webster Simpson 2/17/1903
Webb was born 12/4 1880 and worked as a Lantern lighter in the Streets of Springfield
Glenna died 9/11/1939 at 56 years of age. They did not have any children listed in the Census. They lived at 1159 Yellow Springs St , Springfield at the time of her death, she is buried at Ferncliff Cemetery. In 1930 Lester Portis lived with them.