114 College Ave, Ashland, VA 23005, United States
Ellis attended Randolph-Macon College in Virginia.
Chapel Hill, NC, United States
Ellis graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1841.
114 College Ave, Ashland, VA 23005, United States
Ellis attended Randolph-Macon College in Virginia.
Chapel Hill, NC, United States
Ellis graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1841.
governor judge lawyer politician
John Willis Ellis was born in the "Jersey Settlement" of Rowan County, North Carolina, being the eldest son of Anderson and Judith Bailey Ellis. The Ellis and Willis families are of Welsh origin. The grandfather of the later governor, who was a justice of the peace and a colonel of militia in the French and Indian War. Judith Bailey Ellis belonged to one of the wealthiest families of the county.
Ellis attended the academy at Beattie's Ford, North Carolina, and Randolph-Macon College in Virginia before graduating from the University of North Carolina in 1841.
John Willis Ellis studied law and was admitted to the Salisbury, North Carolina, bar, where he began a law practice in 1842.
Ellis was elected to the state House of Representatives in 1844, 1846, and 1848, where he favored internal improvements.
He was a judge of the Superior Court of North Carolina from 1848 to 1858. In 1858, he was elected governor of the state, and he was reelected in 1860 as a secessionist. His proclamation calling for a convention was instrumental in bringing North Carolina into the Confederacy.
Although Ellis opposed violent action, Ellis reorganized the militia, forbade Northern garrisons at North Carolina forts, and turned over all forts in the state to the Confederate government. While governor, he kept North Carolina in almost complete support of the Confederacy.
John Willis Ellis launched a progressive program of improving North Carolina's roads, waterways, and educational system. He was also pro-slavery and states rights, initially steering a moderate course in his attitude towards the central government. In addressing the General Assembly in November 1860 he urged for the "prevention... of civil war and the preservation of peace," but he also recommended beefing up the State Militia and called for a convention in which North Carolinians could express their opinion on the secession issue.
John Ellis was elected a member of the North Carolina House of Commons as a Democrat from a predominantly Whig county.
Ellis, a staunch Democrat, definitively supported slaveholder's rights, but he did not believe secession was necessary to preserve the institution of slavery. When secessionists seized the state's Forts, Caswell and Johnston, before North Carolina had officially left the Union, Governor Ellis interceded with sent envoys, demanded the return of the forts to the federal government.
Ellis married Mary White on August 25, 1844. By his second marriage to Mary McKinley Daves on August 11, 1858, he had two daughters.
