John Washington Ellis was born in Williamsburg, Clermont County, Ohio, the son of Benjamin and Sallie (Tweed) Ellis.
His paternal ancestors emigrated from Sandwich, England, to Sandwich, Massachusetts, and then removed to what is now a part of Maine, where his father was born.
The son received his early education in Ohio and in New York City where his father resided from 1831 to 1835.
For a year and a half he attended Kenyon College at Gambier, Ohio.
In 1810 Benjamin Ellis started West, settling first in Williamsburg and later in Cincinnati.
On March 1, 1835, he left New York for Cincinnati and for two years worked as an office boy.
In 1837 he returned to New York, remained there three years, and in March 1840 again left for Cincinnati, where he resided for the next thirty years.
On his return to Cincinnati Ellis engaged in trade with the frontiersmen and once accompanied his merchandise as far north as Prairie-du-Chien.
After disposing of his wares, he floated down the Mississippi with a cargo of lead from Galena, destined for New York by way of New Orleans.
At one time he served as president of the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railroad.
Early in 1863 Ellis with eight or ten prominent business men petitioned for a charter for the First National Bank of Cincinnati.
In May 1863 the bank was chartered with a capital of one million dollars, which was larger than that of any other national bank in the country with the exception of the First National Bank of Baltimore.
From 1863 to 1869 Ellis served as president of this institution.
Soon after the war Jay Cooke offered him an equal share in his firm but Ellis refused because he did not approve of its methods.
From 1870 to 1883 he was the head of Winslow, Lanier & Company of New York, and in that position organized many syndicates for the purchase and sale of bonds for the building and extension of the great transcontinental lines and other railroads.
For many years he was a member of the American committee of this company in the United States.
In 1876 Ellis was president of the Third National Bank of New York City in which Samuel J. Tilden was a large depositor and director.
He was called before the congressional committees investigating election returns of that year concerning Tilden’s expenditures.
At New Orleans he visited the slave market and the scenes he witnessed there made him a strong anti-slavery man. Four years later he organized the wholesale dry-goods firm of Ellis & McAlpin which for many years was one of the leading mercantile houses of Cincinnati. He was frequently consulted by the government on financial problems during the war, and took an active part in the sale of government bonds. Probably his most significant work was his negotiation in 1881 of a loan of $40, 000, 000 for the Northern Pacific Railroad, which he sold mostly in London.
His opposition to slavery led him to join the Republican party and during the Civil War he was a loyal supporter of Lincoln’s administration.
He was one of the founders of the Young Men’s Mercantile Library Association of Cincinnati and in 1843 was chosen its president.
was instrumental in purchasing for the Panama Canal Company under the control of De Lesseps the Panama Railroad. For many years he was a member of the American committee of this company in the United States.
In 1845 he married Caroline Satterlee Lindley.
