Background
Henry Leavitt Ellsworth was born in Windsor, Connecticut, United States, son of Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth.
He was a twin brother of William Wolcott Ellsworth, later governor of Connecticut.
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agriculturist first United States commissioner of patents
Henry Leavitt Ellsworth was born in Windsor, Connecticut, United States, son of Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth.
He was a twin brother of William Wolcott Ellsworth, later governor of Connecticut.
After graduation from Yale in 1810 he studied law at the Litchfield Law School.
He practised law and engaged also in agriculture, in which he early showed a special interest, serving as secretary of the Hartford County Agricultural Society in 1818.
He became prominent in business and civic affairs, and in the improvement of real estate did much for the prosperity of Hartford.
On his way West in the same year he accidentally met Washington Irving, Charles Joseph Latrobe, and Count Pourtales, who were traveling together.
All three decided to accompany Commissioner Ellsworth.
It was thus that Irving obtained his material for the Tour on the Prairies (1835).
In April 1835 he was elected mayor of Hartford.
He resigned, however, on June 15, having been appointed by President Jackson as United States commissioner of patents.
He developed the business of the office in a remarkable manner.
From the first he took a special interest in agriculture, and, largely through his influence, Congress was induced in 1839 to make an appropriation for the purpose of collecting and distributing seeds, prosecuting agricultural investigations, and procuring agricultural statistics.
This was the first government appropriation for agriculture.
Similar appropriations were made in 1842 and subsequent years.
On April 30, 1845, he resigned from the Patent Office, and subsequently established himself in Lafayette, Indiana, as an agent for the purchase and settlement of public lands, becoming one of the largest landowners in the West.
(See his “Letter on the Cultivation of the Prairies, Jan. i, 1837, ” appended to Illinois in 1837, 1837. )
He also advocated the use of machinery in agriculture—an idea at that time considered chimerical.
At the same time he participated in the political struggles of the time, was prominent among the supporters of Polk in the election campaign of 1844, and was a presidential elector in that year.
On April 19, 1845, he was appointed by President Polk charge d’affaires to Sweden and Norway.
The duties of this position he performed with ability for over four years, but his diplomatic career was brought to a close by an episode the implications of which are even to-day doubtful.
Early in 1849 charges were made in the European and home press that in December 1848 Ellsworth had connived at an attempt to smuggle British goods into Sweden, and the facts disclosed in an ex parte investigation prima facie supported the allegation.
Ellsworth protested and vigorously defended himself, and a rather pathetic appeal was made to President Taylor by influential public men on his behalf, but in vain; and following a stern letter from Clayton his appointment was terminated July 25, 1849.
On returning to the United States he resumed law practise at Lafayette and later at Indianapolis.
His health, never good, broke down, and he was compelled to relinquish his practise, retiring to New Haven, Connecticut, United States, where he died at the early age of fifty.
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He was one of the earliest to foretell the value of the prairie lands and gave a great impulse to the agricultural operation of the region.
secretary of the Hartford County Agricultural Society in 1818
In 1813 he married Nancy Allen Goodrich, daughter of Elizur Goodrich of New Haven, and settled in Windsor.