GEORGE W. ELLIS.

GEORGE W. ELLIS—Among the substantial and honorable citizens of Allen county and at the same time one of its early settlers is George W. Ellis, of Iola township. He is a son of Asa Ellis whose birth occurred in New York State in 1806. The latter's father died in 1807 and soon thereafter the family came westward to Ohio and settled in Athens county. In early life Asa Ellis worked on a ferryboat on the Scioto River and later on owned and operated one himself. He finally abandoned boating and took up farming and continued it in the Buckeye State till 1860, when he came by boat with his family to Kansas City, Missouri. During the first years of the war he lost his crop by fire at the hands of the bushwhackers and he located again in the city. In 1866 he located near Olathe, Kansas, and in 1869 came to Allen county. He homesteaded the south

half of the northwest quarter of section 14, town 25, range 17, and died thereon in March, 1892.

The mother of our subject was Sarah Franz who was born in Pennsylvania in 1812. She was the daughter of Christian Franz, a son of a German emigrant, and one of the early settlers to his part of the State. She was the mother of: Henry Ellis, deceased, Catharine, wife of William Dye, of Humboldt, Kansas; Eliza, deceased, married James McCausland, of Humboldt; William Ellis, who resides in Woodson county, Kansas; Frank C. Ellis, of Allen county; George W. Ellis; Sarah, wife of W. H. Willingham; Lura, who married Levi Steeley, of Humboldt, and Sylvester Ellis, of Oklahoma.

George W. Ellis was born July 18, 1852, in Athens county, Ohio. He was eight years old when he left his native State and was a youth of seventeen when he came into Allen county, Kansas. He began life as a farm hand, working by the month for R. M. Works, Charles Lehmann and for Hand, the Englishman, west of Humboldt. In this way he earned the funds to provide himself with a team and he rented land, and engaged in farming. He farmed with Robert M. Works for nine years and in 1883 had accumulated sufficient to warrant him in buying a railroad eighty in Iola township. In 1884 he moved to his new farm and by dint of economy and hard work has made it one of the desirable homes on the west side. He bought another eighty acre tract out of the proceeds of the first farm and both are free and unincumbered.

June 18, 1875, Mr. Ellis was married to Jane, a daughter of Peter Freeman, born in 1816, and Nancy Freeman, born in Kentucky, in 1821, who came to Indiana from Whitley county, Kentucky, in 1874, and came to Kansas in 1876. The Freeman children are: Mark, who resides in Kentucky, is married to Anna Bales; James, who enlisted in the Union army in 1862 and died in the service; Henry, who died in 1861; Solomon who died in Kentucky in 1848; John, who married Nancy McCabe and resides in Kentucky; Josh, who married Jane Steeley and resides in Kentucky; Golana, who died in 1896; Jane, the wife of our subject; Benjamin, who married Susan McCabe and resides in Nebraska, and Lucy, wife of Mark Hite, resides in Indiana. The Freemans are Republicans. The result of this union is seven children: Bert Ellis, married to Isa Dix, resides in Allen county; Fred Ellis, married Inez Rush, resides in Iola; George, May, Ethel, Nellie, Frank and Wallace Ellis are all on the homestead.

In early life and until 1890 the Ellis boys were Republicans. That year the Farmers' Mutual Benefit Association, took them out of their party, with thousands of other Republicans, and made so formidable the Peoples' party. To this organization do they still hold National and State allegiance but in county matters their support is given to the worthy and honorable rather than to the party nominee.

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