Background
John Johnson Elwell was born near Warren, Ohio.
editor lawyer physician authority in medical jurisprudence
John Johnson Elwell was born near Warren, Ohio.
His boyhood was spent on a farm and after a common-school education he entered Western Reserve College and later its medical department, the Cleveland Medical College, from which he received his medical degree in 1846.
After practising medicine for several years he studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1854, and began legal practise, particularly in the medico-legal field. He lectured on medical jurisprudence in Ohio University (Athens), the Union Law College, and the medical department of Western Reserve. In 1857 Elwell established the Western Law Monthly and was for years its editor. After the outbreak of the Civil War, on August 3, 1861, he entered the army as captain and assistant quartermaster, and eventually became chief quartermaster of the X Army Corps. After the war he was mustered out of the service with the brevet rank of brigadier-general of volunteers, returned to Cleveland, and continued the practise of law till his death. He wrote for various journals—among other articles one upon the sanity of Guiteau, the assassin of President Garfield—and he was a contributor to and editor of John Bouvier’s Law Dictionary.
admitted to the bar in 1854
e was a member of the Ohio legislature from Ashtabula County in 1853-54.
In person he was tall and vigorous, his manners were courtly, his cheeks ruddy, he wore his hair rather long, and he was fond of children.
His wife, Nancy Chittenden, bore him four children, none of whom survived him, and on her death he adopted the children of his brother, leaving them his fortune.