Alexander B. M. Ellis

As printed in 1891

[This passage is too damaged in the scanned book to reproduce. See the original book.]

Mr. Ellis is a native of the Buckeye State, and was born October 12, 1833, in Brown County, Ohio. He is a son of John and Hannah (Martin) Ellis. His mother was born in Kentucky, and removed to Ohio, when quite young. The father was born in Ohio, and died in 1849. The mother died in May, 1891. They reared a family of ten sons and three daughters, of whom our subject was the seventh child, and of tins number eight are living — one brother in Omaha and the remainder in this county. One sister is the wife of James Cooper, of Little Sioux Township and the older sister is Mrs. M. Murray, of Little Sioux. The father was a farmer by occupation, and as a matter of family record, it should here be recorded that the father was buried in Brown County, Ohio, and that the mother was eighty-six years, six months and twenty days of age at the time of her death, and was buried in Soldier Valley Cemetery, while the father was forty-nine years of age at the time of his death.

Our subject’s education was received in the common schools of Ohio. In 1851, one of his brothers came to Pottawattamie County, low7 a, and two years later was followed by another. Our subject came to Harrison County, and August 18, 1862, in the dark days of the Rebellion, when the sisterhood of States was in jeopardy, our subject enlisted in Company C, Twenty-ninth Iowa Infantry. Was mustered out August 10, 1865, and discharged fifteen days later at Davenport, Iowa. He was in the Southwestern Division, and later in the Gulf Division, of the Union Army. He took part in the battles of Spanish Fort, Ft. Blakely, and Saline River. After the close of the war, he returned to Iowa, followed farming and worked at the carpenter’s trade.

He was married May 20, 1858, to Lois A. Pratt, at Magnolia, Iowa. She was a native of Vermont, and came to this county with her brother in the autumn of 1856. Her brother still resides in Little Sioux Township. Her sister was married to S. J. Smith, (now deceased). They came to the County in 1854. Our subject and his wife are the parents of four children — Flora, born August 21, 1859; Elmer M., March 18, 1862, and died February 18, 1864; Mortie S., born September 28, 1866, and Arthur, August 7, 1875.

Politically, Mr. Ellis is an all the year around Republican. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, Belden Post, No. 59, at Missouri Valley, while he and his estimable wife are both members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and bear the respect of the community in which they live.

As printed in History of Harrison County, Iowa. Containing full-page portraits and biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens of the county. Together with portraits and biographies of all the go (1891). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.