Roger Ellis Mystery

John of the Tuckahoe River

Since many of the Ellis family in Shelby County were descendants of a John Ellis of the Tuckahoe River, the Viriginia line is one that should be explored.

 

John Ellis of the Tuckahoe River in Henrico County Virginia is commonly thought to be born in 1661.  Henrico County on the James River of Virginia includes Richmond Virginia.  The Tuckahoe River (or creek) became the dividing line between Goochland and Henrico Counties  in 1728, when Goochland was split off from Henrico.  (There is also a Tuckahoe Plantation on the Goochland side of the River.  It was the home of Thomas and William Randolph.  Thomas Jefferson lived there for 7 years as a child while his father Peter Jefferson and mother Jane Randolph were guardians of Wm Randolph’s children).   A 1910 book name “Old Churches Ministers and Families of Virginia” contains several pages on this Ellis family.  A Daughters of the American Revolution details the family of a Joseph Ellis (1728-1793) and Elizabeth Perkins of Henrico Co. as listed in his will.  Several of his descendants are clearly found in Shelby Co. around 1800.   They include another Joseph b abt 1759, Charles W. Ellis b 1764, and Martha Ellis who married Wm. Oglesby.  Perhaps the most prominent of the descendants of John of Tuckahoe was Capt. Charles Ellis of Red Hill Plantation of Amherst Co. Va.   Charles’s grandson (also Charles) form large trading company with John Allen (foster father of Edgar Allen Poe) that had a spectacular rise and crash around 1820.  Another grandson of Charles was Powhatan Ellis, who became a Federal Judge, was appointed US Senator from Mississippi (but did not win the election), and served as US Charge d’affairs in Mexico in the 1830’s.

 

Clearly the Tuckahoe Ellis’s were a distinguished family, but can we really connect Roger to this family.  Unfortunately, even though Roger was not a very common name in colonial times, the name Roger Ellis does not show up on any searches of Virginia documents.  At a time when most sons were named after other family members, the name Roger is not to be found in earlier Ellis families.  Very few references to the name Roger Ellis are found prior to “our” Roger Ellis. Could Roger have been a member of one of the few Ellis families where the name Roger appears? Could it be just a coincidence that he ended up living around other with the Ellis surname and his sister-in law was married to one of them?   If Roger was a member of the Tuckahoe Ellis family, who was his father, and why was he born in Pennsylvania?

 

Stephen Ellis A Cousin?

 

One approach is to trace back Stephen Ellis an the assumption that Roger is a cousin.  While Roger is a fairly rare name, it looks like Stephen Ellis was a fairly common name, with many around and many apparent errors spread around.  The Stephen Ellis that married Roger’s sister in law Rebecca became the pastor of the Brushy Creek Baptist Church in Jefferson Co. Indiana after leaving Shelby Co.  We know Stephen married Rebecca Lewis in Franklin Co. Va. in 1794.  I have found an 1782 Henry Co. Va. tax record that shows a Joseph Ellis next to a Joseph Lewis.  It may be that these are the parents of Stephen and Rebecca.  This is also the conclusion of another contributor to the Ellis Cousins Newsletter.  (Franklin Co. was formed from parts of Henry and Bedford Cos. in 1785).  Another document from Henry County is a Public Claims record from about 1780 (Public claims were Revolutionary War IOUs recording people who contributed something of value to the cause.  They are ofter used to document DAR ancestor service).  This document shows Joseph Ellis next to a Charles Lee.  (It is of historical interest that two entries above shows Patrick Henry, Esq.  This is almost certainly the Patrick Henry, governor of Va, that said “Give me Liberty or Give me Death”.  Henry County was named for him, and he had a 1000 acre estate called Leatherwood in the County where he lived from 1779 to 1884).   Stephen Lee was the father of Mildred Lee.  Mildred married a John Ellis in 1791 in Franklin Co. Va.  I suspect that this John Ellis was another son of Joseph Ellis.  I will come back to Mildred and John’s family later.  Other genealogists show that this Lee family is from Goochland County – near the Tuckahoe River.

 

So who is this Joseph Ellis of Henry County?  Was he the son of the earlier Joseph Ellis listed in the DAR application?   The Douglas Register (a record of births, marriages, and deaths of St. James Northam Parish in Goochland Co. kept by Rev. Wm. Douglas.  (Douglas was also Thomas Jefferson’s tutor who taught him Latin and a little Greek) show a Joseph Ellis married Mary Hughes in 1776.)   The contributors to the Ellis Cousins Newsletter think that they are separate but related people who both ended up in Shelby County.    They are probably right.   There is a record of a 1787 marriage between a Joseph Ellis and Mary Litteral in Franklin Co. Va.  This is too late for Mary to be the mother of Stephen, but it does seem  to indicate this is a different Joseph.

 

The family of Mildred Lee and John Ellis does seem to take us back to the Tuckahoe area.   The Lee family researchers show strong evidence that Mildred’s father Stephen was born in Goochland Co. the son of John Lee (not apparently related to the more famous Lee family of Virginia).  There are also land transactions between Stephen Lee and a Shadrack Woodson whom we will introduce later).   The Goochland location suggest that Joseph Ellis of Franklin Co. Va. was part of the Tuckahoe Ellis family.  Mildred and John also seem to be the parents of another Joseph Ellis (b 1812) that married Nahusta Miles.    They moved to Neosho Falls in Woodson County, Kansas, which is just catty-corner from Neosho County, where Roger’s descendants settled. The parallel movement of Roger’s family and Nahusta and Joseph’s is striking.  They went from Shelby Co. Ky. through Indiana to the same part of Kansas.  It certainly seems plausible they also came from Tuckahoe, through Franklin Co. Va.

 

Migration and Our Families

 

Another pointer to Henrico Co. is through the family of the Lucy Ann Storms who married Roger’s son David.  Her grandfather, Conrad Cornelius Storms married Nancy Hall in Franklin Co. Va. in 1785.  She and her brother Rev. Randolph Hall were children of Rev. Nathan Hall of Gloucester Va.  Randolph married a Sarah Woodson, whose sister Frances “Fanny” Woodson married another Joseph Ellis (b. abt 1768).   He appears to be another son of Joseph Ellis of Franklin Co. Va. that we have already discussed.   Sarah and Frances were daughter of the Shadrack who had land deals with Stephen Lee in Frankin Co. Va.  The Woodson family can be traced back to a Dr. John Woodson, an Oxford trained surgeon who arrived on the James River in 1619 with  Gov. George Yardley.  From commonly  accepted genealogies and a lot of evidence, both Lucy Storms and the Woodson sisters were descendents of John Woodson through his son, Col. Robert “Tater Hole” Woodson.   The nickname came from the hiding place for Robert during the 1644 Indian raid that killed Dr. Robert Woodson.  Robert’s brother John was called “Wash Tub” because of his hiding place.  The Woodson family is prominent in Henrico Co. history.  (Another descendant of Robert Woodson was Jesse Woodson James).

 

What seems to be emerging is a picture of a migration of a group of families (including many Baptist preachers) from both Henrico and Goochland sides of Tuckahoe Creek through Henry/Franklin Co. Virginia around 1780 to Shelby Co. Ky around 1800, with several of them moving across the Ohio River to Indiana around 1820.   The families included Ellis, Lee, and Woodson, with Lewis and Hall family members joining them in Franklin Co. Va.

 

So how could Roger born in Pennsylvania in 1782 fit in with this group?   Lacking documentary evidence, we can only speculate.  Roger was born right after the end of the Revolutionary War.  The final stages of the War were in the South, with the James River dominated by British forces.  Could Roger’s mother or both parents have gone north to Pennsylvania to seek safety?  The Lewis family can be traced to the Philadelphia area.  Is it possible these families were already connected?  While Franklin Co was not very close to Pennsylvania, the 1751 Jefferson-Fry map of Virginia shows “The Great Road From the Yadkin River Though Virginia to Philadelphia” goes across the Pigg River and follows “Horse Pasture Creek” where Rev. Nathan Hall was known to preach.  With increased internal commerce during the war, this may have been a well traveled road.  It is shown that at some point the Ellis family of Virginia became well-established merchants with many connections.  It seems quite plausible that in 1782 they already had connections in the Philadelphia (the center of US commerce) and were involved with trading and shipping on the Western road to Pennsylvania.

 

Ties to Jamestown?

 

Several genealogies extend this Ellis family back to a John Ellis b 1631 who is claimed to be the son of the David Ellis who arrived in Jamestown in 1609 on the “Second Supply” to the Jamestown Colony.  Capt. John Smith’s General History lists a David Ellis as part of a group of carpenters who went to Chief Powhatan’s capital on the York to build an English style house for him.  It is not clear if the house was ever built.  There are at least two descendants of the Tuckahoe Ellis family named Powhatan.  Perhaps they thought they had a connection to the Chief through this David.   There is also a David and Margaret Ellis listed in the 1824 Muster.  It shows they arrived on the ship Mary Margaret in Feb. 1624, so he does seem to be the David listed by John Smith.  It is unclear if there  is solid documentation to support these claims.

 

Ties to Randolphs?

 

Several genealogies extend this Ellis family back to a John Ellis b 1631 who is claimed to be the son of the David Ellis who arrived in Jamestown in 1609 on the “Second Supply” to the Jamestown Colony.  Capt. John Smith’s General History lists a David Ellis as part of a group of carpenters who went to Chief Powhatan’s capital on the York to build an English style house for him.  It is not clear if the house was ever built.  There are at least two descendants of the Tuckahoe Ellis family named Powhatan.  Perhaps they thought they had a connection to the Chief through this David.   There is also a David and Margaret Ellis listed in the 1824 Muster.  It shows they arrived on the ship Mary Margaret in Feb. 1624, so he does seem to be the David listed by John Smith.  It is unclear if there  is solid documentation to support these claims.

 

Next Steps

 

There are extensive archives of the company of Ellis and Allen, Merchants in the Library of Congress.  It could include correspondence between branches of the Ellis family.  The Virginia Historical Society in Richmond also has a collection of materials and correspondence relating to the Ellis family from 1701 to 1889.  The catalog suggest that most relate to the family of John, son of the John of Tuckahoe b. 1661.

 

There is a 1787 land patent to Joseph Ellis for 2,067.5 acres of land in the Sandy Watershed in Bourbon Co. (now Eastern Kentucky).  There may be more information in the Kentucky Archive that might help understand which Joseph was granted the land.  It may have been land speculation that was sold off but never occupied by Ellis.

 

There seem to be several branches of the Tuckahoe Ellis family that do not seem to be included in easily found genealogies.  Perhaps more development of these branches would be useful.  It might take a trip to Virginia.