EDWARD CARPENTER ELLET
Bio- Pen Pictures
SURNAMES: LLOYD, CARPENTER, ISRAEL, CABELL, VANDORN, BRADFORD, IRVING, FRAZIER
Prominent among the various distinguished members of the famous Ellet
family of American patriots may be included Edward Carpenter Ellet of
Mayfield, the father of Alfred W. Ellet, vice-president, and Charles
Ellet, cashier of The Stanford Bank at Palo Alto and Mayfield. He is a
son of the late Brig.-Gen. Alfred Washington Ellet of Civil War fame.
The Ellet family originates from French Huguenot and Quaker stock and
goes back to the days of William Penn. This family is closely related
to, and descended from, two noted pioneer Quaker families of
Pennsylvania, namely that of Thomas Lloyd and Samuel Carpenter, both of
whom were intimately connected with the earliest Colonial history of
Penn's Woodland The Lloyd family is one of the most ancient and
substantial families of Great Britain, having a genealogy which reaches
back to William the Conqueror and even to Charlemagne. Thomas Lloyd,
the progenitor of the Lloyd family in America, served many years as
Deputy Governor of Pennsylvania. He was the son of Charles Lloyd, a
gentleman of rank and fortune and of ancient family and estate called
"Dolobran" in Montgomeryshire, in North Wales. He grew up in Wales and
was educated at Oxford and is represented as possessing superior
attainments joined with great benevolence and activity of character. He
died in Philadelphia in 1694, aged fifty-four years. The historian,
Watson, in his Annals of Philadelphia, says: "Having established his
colony on the broad principles of charity and constitutional freedom,
he 'Penn) left his executive power in the hands of the Council under
the Presidency of Thomas Lloyd, an eminent Quaker. Penn was absent
about fifteen years. Thomas Lloyd joined the Society of Friends in 1662
and became a highly useful and eminent member thereof. He arrived in
Pennsylvania in 1683 and died July 10, 1694, honored by all who knew
him."
The second noted progenitor of the family was Samuel Carpenter, who was
also a Quaker, a contemporary of, and a co-worker with, Penn. He was
born in 1650 in England, and joined Penn in Philadelphia in 1682;
became a great merchant and very prominent in political ways and died
in 1714, being then the treasurer of the province. Of him Watson, the
historian says: " The name of Samuel Carpenter is connected with
everything of a public nature in the annals of Pennsylvania. I have seen his name at every turn in searching
the old records. He was the Stephen Girard of his day in wealth, and
the William Sansom in the improvements he suggested and edifices which
he bult."
Samuel Carpenter settled near the present site of Salem, N. J. and from
the union of his daughter to one Charles Ellet, who was of French
Huguenot extraction, was born another Charles Ellet. He was a man of
sterling quality and married Miss Mary Israel, the daughter of Israel
Israel, a Philadelphian of wealth, political and social standing, who
was noted in his day as a patriot, and who did much as a member of the
"Committee of Safety" to establish American Independence. From this
union sprang the great Ellet family of the Mississippi River Ram Fleet
and Marine Brigade which attained undying fame during the course of the
Civil War.
Mary Ellet was also a patriot, and her wonderful character
is truthfully and eloquently set forth in the following extract from an
article by John W. Forney, published in the Philadelphia Press: "Her
familiarity with American history for. seventy-five years, including
many of the characters who figured in and after the Revolution—her
patriotic ancestors and descendants—her own passionate love of country
inherited from one and transmitted to the other—her spotless
reputation—entitles her, I think, more than any other of her sex, to
the appellation of the American Cornelia. In writing of her, I cherish
no purpose of vain eulogy—I write solely to preserve the record of a
remarkable life, that it may not be lost among men, and to present an
example which every American woman may study with pleasure and with
profit. Rarely has there been such a resemblance between two persons as
between the illustrous Roman matron and Mary Ellet—both renowned for
purity of character, vigorous intellect, and a virtuous ambition. Their
love of country was supreme."
Charles and Mary Ellet became the parents of six sons, four of whom
grew to manhood and all of whom gained distinction and prominence,
namely, Charles Ellet, Jr , the famous engineer and inventor who
originated the Naval Ram and built and commanded the Mississippi River
Ram Fleet; John I. Ellet, the pioneer of the West, well known to the
early history of San Francisco and San Jose; Dr. Edward Carpenter
Ellet, a well known physician at Bunker Hill, Ill.; and Brig. Gen.
Alfred Washington Ellet, who was the father of the subject of the
sketch.
Charles Ellet, Jr., the famous engineer, naval genius and hero, was
born in Bucks County, Pa., January 1, 1810, and although he grew up on
a farm, his inclinations led him to mathematics and engineering
pursuits. After helping to build the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal. he
was able to visit Europe for study, and completed his education in the
Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, after which he became an engineer on the
Utica & Schenectady Railroad, then on the Erie, and subsequently
was chief engineer of the James & Kanawha Canal. In 1842 he planned
and built the first wire suspension bridge in this country, it being a
foot bridge, stringing it across the Schuylkill River at Philadelphia.
He designed and built the first suspension bridge across the Niagara
River below the falls in 1847. As a matter of interest and as a showing
of his bold fearlessness, it may be here related that he drove a team
or a carriage with his daughter, Mary Virginia Ellet, who is now Mrs. Mary Virginia Ellet
Cabell of Washington, D. C., in the seat behind him across this bridge
without any side railing, swaying with every footstep, over the surging
waters of the rapids below, from Canada to the United States, while
thousands of terrified spectators who were skeptical as to the safety
of the bridge, held their breaths in silent horror. Mrs. Mary Virginia
Ellet Cabell, formerly of Norwood, Va., but now of Washington, D. C ,
is, and for about a quarter of a century last past, has been President
Presiding of the Daughters of the American Revolution, a position of
honor which no one else has ever held. She is an own cousin of
Ex-Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, and of United States
Senator John Daniels of Virginia.
Among the many important engineering works planned and successfully
consummated by Charles Ellet was the laying out of the temporary route
of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad across the Cumberland Mountains,
which was used while the great tunnel was being made.
Charles Ellet, Jr., has the particular distinction of being the first
to advocate a definite plan for the use of steam rams, and suggested a
plan to the Russian government by which the allied fleet before
Sebastopol might be destroyed. At the beginning of the Civil War in
1861, he became interested in military matters and devoted much
attention to the use of rams in naval warfare. He sent a plan for
cutting off the Confederate Army at Manassas to General McClellan, who
rejected it, and Ellet then wrote two pamphlets censuring McClellan's
mode of conducting the campaign. He urged upon the Government the
construction of steam rams, for use on the large rivers of the West,
and after his plans had been rejected by the Navy Department, he
presented them in person to the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, by
whom they were approved, the rebels already having taken advantage of
his ideas, in the construction of the Merrimac and several other rams
on the coast. He was then commissioned Colonel of the Staff of
Engineers, and converted several powerful light-draft steamers on the
Mississippi and Ohio Rivers into rams. In his letter to Charles Ellet,
Jr., dated April 26, 1862, Secretary Stanton made it plain that he
wanted Ellet to have a high legal authority and an independent command
over the Ram Fleet. The rank of "Colonel of Staff' was the highest he
could bestow without the concurrent action of the Senate, which would
have caused delay, else his commission would no doubt have been of
greater dignity. As it was, Mr. Stanton made it clear that his command
should be concurrent with, and not under, the Naval Commander. Thus the
Ram Fleet and the Marine Brigade acted in closest cooperation with the
Army and was the only independent command on the side of the Union
forces, reporting direct to the Secretary of War. With the fleet of
rams thus constructed, he engaged -in the naval battle off Memphis on
June 6, 1862, and sunk and disabled the entire fleet of Confederate
vessels except the ram known as the General Van Dorn, which escaped up
the river. During the battle, Ellet was struck above the knee by a
pistol-ball, and died from the effects of his wound.
Among his most noteworthy labors, says Appleton's Cyclopaedia of
American Biography, was his investigation of the hydraulics of the Ohio
and Mis
sissippi rivers, the results of which were printed by the Smithsonian
Institute at Washington. He also published at Philadelphia, as early as
1855, a treatise on "Coast and Harbor Defences, or the Substitution GI
Steam Battering-Rams for Ships of War." Curiously enough, his idea of
the battering-ram in naval warfare has been adopted by every nation in
the world—every cruiser, battleship and fighting craft afloat today is
built with a powerful ram-like prow, and can be used as a ram in the
destruction of an enemy craft whenever opportunity presents. But the
universal adoption of this principle proves the greatness of his mind
and this idea.
John I. Ellet, a brother of Charles Ellet, Jr., settled in San Mateo
County as one of its path-breakers, in 1853, and named the town Belmont
after the two bell-shaped mounds to be found there; he built the old
Belmont Hotel, which is still standing, shipping the lumber for it
around the Horn in 1853. He afterwards moved to San Jose. He had two
sons, John A. and Richard, and they taught in the College at Santa
Clara, until the Civil War broke cut. Then they joined the famous
California 100, and were later transferred to the Ram Fleet. John I.
Ellet left California in 1865, never to return to the Golden State,
with whose development he had had an interesting participation. He
arrived in New York harbor on the day when Lincoln was assassinated.
Charles Rivers Ellet, a son of the preceding Charles Ellet, Jr., was
engaged at the outbreak of the Civil War in studying medicine, and he
soon became assistant surgeon in one of the military hospitals. In
1862 he commanded one of his father's rams in the celebrated
action at Memphis. After his father's death, on the organization of the
Mississippi Marine brigade by his uncle, Alfred Washington Ellet, he
was appointed Colonel and when his uncle was commissioned
brigadier-general, Col. Charles Rivers Ellet was placed in command of
the Ram Fleet. Choosing the ram Queen of the West as his flagship, he
made many daring expeditions on the Mississippi, and succeeded in
running the Confederate batteries at Vicksburg after ramming the City
of Vicksburg under Vicksburg's batteries, in a most desperate and
spectacular dash. As he was cruising between that stronghold and Fort
Hudson, on February 10, 1863, he made an expedition up the Red River
and captured the Confederate steamer Era and a number of other vessels,
and destroyed many stores of provisions. After descending the river
successfully, a traitorous pilot ran his vessel aground, placing her in
such a difficult position that she was disabled by the fire from the
Confederate fort, and fell into the hands of • the enemy. Colonel Ellet
would have blown up or burned her rather than allow her to fall into
the hands of the enemy had it not been for the fact that one of his
trusted officers and a personal friend was left lying on the deck
mortally wounded from a musket-ball, and for that reason the noted
fighting craft was abandoned. Colonel Ellet, however, true to the
traditions of a family as renowned for its valor as for its scientific
ingenuity, made his escape by putting off boldly on a bale of cotton,
from which he was rescued by the Union De Soto, under his command.
During the siege of Vicksburg and afterward, he rendered most valuable
assistance to General Grant, which was later duly recognized in
official despatches, in keeping open his communications; but in the
performance of this duty his health failed, owing to the climate, and he
died suddenly in Illinois, to which State he had retired for a brief
rest.
Alfred Washington Ellet was born on October 11, 1820, on his father's
farm in Bucks County, Pa., on the banks of the Delaware, the youngest
of six stalwart sons, and next to the youngest of a vigorous family of
fourteen children. In 1824, his father's family removed to
Philadelphia, where Alfred entered the city schools; but at the age of
sixteen, a sudden change in health necessitated his abandoning further
educational advantages, and he took to agricultural pursuits. He
engaged in farming near Bunker Hill, ill., about twenty-five miles
northeast of St. Louis. This rough, out-of-door experience developed in
him a gigantic physique, and when he came to manhood's estate, he was
six feet, two and one-half inches tall, and strong and enduring in
proportion to his commanding size. He also developed temperate habits,
a strong, moral character, and an uncompromising sense of justice and
right. By hard, intelligent industry, he established a home both for
himself and Lis aged, widowed mother, in whose company on the streets
of Bunker Hill his fellow-citizens often saw him—"his manner toward her
ever that of a youthful and ardent lover toward his intended bride."
The humiliating defeat of the Union forces at Bull Run, so near their
old home, fired Alfred Ellet's patriotic soul; and in July, 1861, as
captain of a company, raised by himself in and around Bunker Hill, he
entered the service of his country, at the Arsenal in St. Louis, at the
head of Company I, Ninth Missouri Volunteer Infantry. This entire
regiment was composed of Illinois men, who had enlisted with the
expectation of being mustered into an Illinois regiment, under
President Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers; but the quota of the
State was filled about a week before they were ready for muster, and so
they were at first accredited to Missouri, although they afterward
became the Fifty-ninth Illinois Infantry.
Captain Ellet participated in
the early and memorable Missouri campaigns, under General John C.
Fremont and General S. R. Curtis, and was with his regiment in' the
Battle of Pea Ridge. While in camp, a few weeks later, he received an
order to report to his brother, Colonel of Staff Charles Ellet, Jr., of
ram fleet fame, and was made second in command of the Mississippi River
Ram Fleet, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. As commander of that
fleet, after his brother's death, his career was brilliant; and in
recognition of his distinguished service on the Mississippi, the War
Department determined to enlarge his command, and on November 1, 1862,
promoted him to the rank of brigadier-general of volunteers and placed
him in charge of both the Ram Fleet and the Marine Brigade. This new
command of the Mississippi River Marine Brigade included the rams which
did such effective service and helped to make the thrilling record of
high patriotic endeavor and accomplishment which has been told in
detail in the "History of the Ram Fleet and the Mississippi River
Marine Brigade in the War for the Union: The Story of the Ellets and
Their Men,"—a handsome, compendious volume giving the portraits and
biographies of the famous participants. In the ready adaptation of
himself to the duties of both these commands, Brigadier-General Ellet's
remarkable resourcefulness of mind amazed even his most intimate
friends. He at once mastered
the knowledge of river-craft and navigation, and so well managed the
affairs of the rams that he was able to maintain their equipment and
high standard of efficiency, and later organize and equip the brigade.
While not a military tactician, he gathered about him those who were;
and being quick to see advantageous positions, he inspired everyone
with his unquestioned courage and skill. He was a superb horseman, in
action like a fierce lion stirred up in his lair, and he maintained the
most admirable personal bearing amid appalling perils. He was exacting
of subordinates, although generous and just in recognition of service
by inferiors, and unflinching in his attitude toward the enemy. He
ordered the burning of Austin, Miss., on May 24, 1863, in retaliation
for information furnished by citizens to Confederates of General
Chalmers' command, which enabled the latter to fire upon a Federal
transport; and although, like so many of the greatest Americans, he
could not escape envy and detraction, his eminent career has given him
a position in the annals of his country where his name is imperishable.
He died in Kansas in 1895. In the National. Cemetery at Vicksburg,
Miss., stands a bronze bust of him erected by the Government as a
tribute to his valorous services.
The Mississippi Ram Fleet and Marine Brigade was the only independent
volunteer command in the service. It was a part of the army and not of
the navy, and as such was amenable directly to the Secretary of War,
and in consequence every commissioned officer in it was appointed
directly by the President and the Secretary of War instead of the
governors of the states. Both the fleet and the brigade acted in
closest cooperation under the command of Brigadier-General Alfred W.
Ellet, and though subjected to the jealousies of certain naval
commanders, it was a most effective force in clearing the Mississippi
River, and thus played a very important part n winning the war for the
Union. The outstanding feature of its accomplishments was due to the
bold intrepidity of its commanding general, who, in point of fearless
courage, had no superior. Another thing which contributed to his
success, was the fact that he was heart and soul in the cause against
slavery and for the preservation of the Union. At times General Ellet
seemed to act rashly; but his rashness was a failing which leaned to
virtue. He was a man of strong moral conviction and character. After
the war, as a private citizen in the state of Kansas, he espoused the
cause of prohibition with the same zeal with which he had opposed
slavery, entered personally into the state campaign and played a very
important part in making Kansas a prohibition state.
Edward Carpenter Ellet, the subject of this sketch, who is
Brigadier-General Alfred Washington Ellet's oldest son, was born in
Bunker Hill, Ill., on September 17, 1845, and although springing from a
family never wanting in its encouragement of the Federal Government, he
deemed it necessary to run away from home when the War broke out, and
enlisted on July 15, 1861, under President Lincoln's first call for
volunteers, being mustered into service on July 25, 1861, in Company F,
Seventh Illinois Regiment at the youthful age of fifteen years and ten
months, being the first one of the Ellet family to enlist. After
marching on Cape Girardeau under General Benjamin E. Prentiss, he was
transferred, upon request of his father, to Company I, Ninth Missouri Regiment and he remained with that regiment until the War
Department ordered Captain A. W. Ellet to report to Colonel Charles
Ellet, Jr., at New Albany, Ind , with 100 picked men for special and
hazardous service. This was after the Battle of Pea Ridge, in which
Edward C. Ellet had also participated, and after the regiment had
marched to Cross Timbers on the eastern edge of Arkansas; and with
Lieut.-Col. A. W. Ellet, Edward C. Ellet, as one of the one hundred
chosen, started to join the then rapidly organizing Mississippi Ram
Fleet. At N ew Albany, he was appointed aide on Col. Ellet's staff, and
carried orders to the river boats then being transformed into steam
rams. He sailed with the Ram Fleet to Fort Pillow, then undergoing its
fifty-two days of bombardment, and he was one of a small party who, a
week or so after his arrival, planted the Stars and Stripes on that
famous Confederate fort after its fall.
The Ram Fleet then took the lead, and moved down the river to Memphis,
where the famous naval battle was fought on June 6, 1862, and the Rebel
fleet was destroyed, the Union Ram Fleet suffering the loss of its
gallant commander, Col. Charles Ellet, Jr., as narrated above. Edward
C. Ellet, noted already as a dead-shot, was a sharp-shooter on the
flagship, Queen of the West. After the fall of Memphis, the Ram Fleet
moved down the river to Vicksburg, pluckily passing the river batteries
with only bales of cotton to protect their ship's boilers. While in
Memphis, the youthful Edward C. Ellet was one of the four men who,
under the leadership of Charles Rivers Ellet, pushed through the raging
mob then surging the streets of Memphis to the postoffice building, and
there, while stoned and fired upon by the mob below, tore down the
rebel banner, and placed Old Glory on the staff instead, and without
escort safely returned to the Union boats. At Vicksburg, the rams, then
under the leadership of Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred W. Ellet, found
themselves alone in a hostile country, and learning that Admiral
Farragut was with his flagship, the Hartford, and other naval craft
below Vicksburg. Lieutenant-Colonel Ellet decided to communicate with
him, so he called for volunteers to don citizens' clothes and steal
their way across the well-patrolled point of land. Instantly his son
Edward and three others stepped forward and ,volunteered for the
hazardous journey, which they successfully made, after twice being
almost captured and after having been arrested by Admiral Porter's
command, which suspected them of being spies for the reason that they
resolutely refused to deliver their message to Admiral Porter, since
they had strict orders to deliver it to Admiral Farragut in person.
Having thus at the risk of their lives delivered their message to
Admiral Farragut in person, they were treated by the great Farragut
with the utmost consideration, and were sent back up the river with
dispatches under an escort of one hundred marines. Edward C. Ellet
participated in the siege of Vicksburg, where his command erected a
defense and battery, which successfully bombarded the city.
About this time the rebel ram Arkansas came down the Yazoo River, ran
through the northern fleets then lying at anchor and, thinking
themselves secure, were commencing to clean their boilers.
Lieutenant-Colonel Ellet again called for volunteers, this time to
accompany him and attempt to destroy the Arkansas by ramming her at her moorings, being then anchored under the
protection of the Confederates' batteries of Vicksburg. His son Edward,
still a private sharpshooter, was the first man to step forward for the
service, much to his brave father's dismay. The trip was made. For over
an hour they were under the fire of Vicksburg batteries, concentrated
on the little wooden ship. The Arkansas was struck and badly damaged,
but owing to an eddy in the current, she was not destroyed. Her gunners
worked hard as the Queen of the West backed away, and
Lieutenant-Colonel Ellet and his son Edward drew their pistols and at
such close range, literally laid the rebel gunners at their guns,
effectively checking their fire. For this gallant performance, Edward
Carpenter Ellet was appointed by Congress as second lieutenant at the
same time that Lieutenant-Colonel Ellet was made a brigadier-general.
In the meantime, Admiral D. D. Porter being away, Admiral Farragut had
run the batteries alone at Port Hudson and was below Vicksburg, from
which point he sent word to Porter to dispatch him a couple of rams, as
he was afraid of a ram-attack from the rebels. In response, Colonel
Charles Rivers El-let, commanding the Switzerland, and Colonel John A.
Ellet, who was the son of John I. Ellet, the California pioneer
heretofore mentioned, commanding the Lancaster, were designated to run
the batteries of Vicksburg, and report with their rams to Admiral
Farragut below. The Lancaster was sunk by the heavy shell fire from the
shore and upper batteries: and the Switzerland had her boilers and
steam pipes burst, but floated down the river out of range. Lieutenant
Edward C. Ellet was on the Switzerland, which was soon enveloped in
steam, so that all the negroes in the engine room were scalded. A shot,
weighing 120 pounds, had pierced the boiler. and even on deck the heat
was intense to suffocation. The engineer, Granville Robarts, a relative
of the general, seeing the danger, stopped the engines and saved
himself by jumping overboard into the river; then he caught hold of the
slow moving wheel, which lifted him to the plank used by the deck-hands
to dip up water, climbed back onto the deck after the heat had
subsided, and went back to the boiler room after the explosion.
Lieutenant Edward C. Ellet served on the staff of General Ellet until
the close of the war, and during that time he was appointed special
messenger to take to Washington captured Confederate currency to the
amount of $1,800,000: this he carried in two satchels and delivered it
at the War Secretary's office in person to Secretary Edwin M. Stanton.
While there he met President Lincoln, who came into the war office on
business while young Ellet was talking with the War Secretary. Mr.
Lincoln sent for Secretary Chase of the Treasury, who also came.
General Halleck happened in at the same time and young Ellet was
introduced to all of them, was highly complimented, and given a three
days' pass in the city. Upon Edward C. Ellet's honorable discharge
Major a S. Tallerday, commanding the Marine Regiment at Vicksburg on
January 19, 1865. wrote underneath the precious document an unsolicited
note of high acknowledgment and recognition. reading: "I have known
Lieutenant Ellet for the last two years. As an officer, he is ever
ready to do his whole duty: he is brave to a fault; while as a gentleman, he is unexceptionable."
Thus, the services rendered to the Union by the Ellets was of the
greatest value. They were inspired by pure patriotism. The idea of the
ram fleet was conceived by a master mind, that of Charles Ellet, Jr.,
the foremost engineer of the nation at that time. They carried out
their plans boldly and fearlessly, personally leading every charge,
displaying the greatest courage and bravery amidst the greatest of
dangers, not stopping at death itself. After the war, Edward C. Ellet
was appointed Military Constable of Yazoo County, Miss., and given a
company of Union soldiers to aid him in enforcing law and order during
the reconstruction period.
Miraculously escaping death from the yellow fever, he went West with a
troop of soldiers on an Indian expedition as far as Fort Bozeman,
Mont., in 1867. With two companions he made his return down the
Missouri River in a skiff as far as Sioux City, passing through the
country of the hostile Sioux Indians at a time when buffaloes were so
numerous that his journey was seriously impeded by vast droves crossing
the river in front of them. From Sioux City he made his way back home
to visit relatives at Bunker Hill, Ill.; and in 1869, enamored of the
West and frontier life, he was induced to go out to Eldorado, now the
county seat of Butler County, Kan., which was then being settled by
Union soldiers who took up' claims of homestead. There he started the
first hardware store and organized one of the first banks in Butler
County, and became a great political leader, serving as chairman on the
Republican County Central Committee and dictating the policies of the
county for many years. He was prominent in establishing Eldorado as the
county seat. He was appointed government agent for the Piute Indians in
1884. Leaving his banking interests in the hands of his partner, N. F.
Frazier, and his father, General Alfred W. Ellet, after whom the public
park in Eldorado was named, his father then became president of the
bank. About this time General Ellet was offered a commission as
major-general in the U. S. regular army. This he respectfully declined,
expressing his desire that as long as there was no need for his
services in actual warfare, in defense of his country, he preferred to
enjoy private life.
Edward C. Ellet then went to Winnemucca, Nev., where he was Indian
agent for a year; from Winnemucca, during this period, in the due
course or his official duties, he made a trip to San Francisco and back
on horseback, after which he returned to Eldorado and resumed banking.
Although holding great political power in the State of Kansas, Edward
C. Ellet never ran for a political office. On March 14, 1902, he was
appointed by Governor W. E. Stanley as member of the board of directors
of the State Penitentiary for the term of three years, and elected
president of the board at their April meeting. On July 28, 1902,
Governor Stanley appointed him delegate to the annual congress of the
National Prison Association, at Philadelphia, which met September 13 to
17, 1902, after which he was sent to Yucatan, Mexico, to buy sisal for
the state. While there he was entertained by the governor of the State
of Yucatan in royal fashion. In 1903 he resigned his position on the
State Prison Board and sold out his banking interests to his
son-in-law, R. E. Frazier, who was the son of his partner, and accepted
an appointment as special agent of the United States General Land
Office with headquarters at Seattle, Wash., serving as such from 1903
until 1908, when he resigned, came down to Mayfield, Calif., and in
company with his son, Charles Ellet, bought out the old Mayfield Bank
and Trust Company. He became its president and his son Charles became
its cashier. They came to Mayfield in December, 1908, and January 1,
1909, took charge of the bank. In 1918 he retired from active
participation in the bank, leaving its management to his son, Charles
Ellet, who reorganized it and brought his brother, Alfred W. Ellet, who
was then deputy bank commissioner for the State of Kansas, out to
assist him.
On October 20, 1870, Edward Carpenter Ellet was married at Bunker Hill,
Ill, to Miss Frances Webster Van Dorn, whose family history is no less
notable than that of her illustrious husband. She was born at Bunker
Hill, Ill., on January 31, 1854, and is a daughter of Thomas Jefferson
Van Dorn, an Argonaut who is a near relative of the famous Southern
cavalryman, General Earl Van Dorn of the Confederate Army. She is also
a direct descendant of the historic Pilgrim father, Governor Bradford
of Massachusetts, and is furthermore a blood relative of Washington
Irving, the celebrated author. Mr. and Mrs. Edward C. Ellet have made
their home at Mayfield since 1908, and with the exception of a stroke
of paralysis in 1920 sustained by Mr. Ellet, both are enjoying a
reasonable state of health, are well and favorably known and most
highly respected. They have become the parents of three children:
Henrietta Wilbur Ellet Frazier, who married the late R. E. Frazier,
noted banker and oil man. R. E. Frazier discovered oil in the Eldorado
field in Kansas, and brought in the first private well in that field on
the Linn lease, it being the second well in that district. He succumbed
to the influenza epidemic in December, 1918. Mrs. Frazier is now a
resident of Menlo Park, where she has lived since 1919, and is the
mother of one child, a daughter, Henrietta Ellet Frazier, who is a
student at the Castilleja School for Girls at Palo Alto.
Alfred W. Ellet, vice president, and Charles Ellet, cashier of The
Stanford Bank, both noted elsewhere in this work, are, respectively,
the oldest and youngest of the three. Edward Carpenter Ellet has lived
a full, useful and remarkable life, and now, as the sun is about to set
on his earthly activities he hands down the glories of a noble ancestry
undimmed and untarnished to a worthy progeny, while the nation is left
stronger and better for his strenuous, patriotic and illustrious career.
from Eugene T. Sawyers' History of Santa Clara County,California, published by Historic Record Co. , 1922. page 746
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