Background
Powhatan Ellis was born at “Red Hill, ” Amherst County, Virginia, the youngest son of Major Josiah and Jane (Shelton) Ellis, and was named for the father of Pocahontas, from whom he claimed descent.
Powhatan Ellis was born at “Red Hill, ” Amherst County, Virginia, the youngest son of Major Josiah and Jane (Shelton) Ellis, and was named for the father of Pocahontas, from whom he claimed descent.
lie was a student in Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) for three years, and graduated from Dickinson College, Pa. , in 1810.
Three years later he graduated in law from the College of William and Mary, and was admitted to the Virginia bar, practising for a short time in Lynchburg.
In 1815 he met General Andrew Jackson, and a personal friendship grew up between them.
Accompanied by several young men, including two sons of Patrick Henry, his distant cousins, Ellis set out in April 1816 for Mississippi.
He stopped for a time at Natchez, but soon removed to Winchester.
Under the tutelage of General James Patton, he entered upon his public career just as the territory of Mississippi was emerging into statehood (Mississippi Historical Society Publications, vol. VI, 1902, p. 271).
In 1818 he was elevated to the supreme bench of the state.
Some of his biographers say that Ellis was “extremely indolent, ” but the fact that he wrote the opinions in approximately two-thirds of the cases decided by the Mississippi supreme court from 1819 to 1824 seems to disprove the accuracy of the accusation.
After seven years in this position lie received from Governor Leake an ad interim appointment to the seat in the United States Senate made vacant by the resignation of David Holmes.
In the Mississippi legislature he was defeated for the honor of filling out the unexpired term, but a year later was elected senator for the full period of six years.
Four years later the President requested him to become United States chargé d’affaires in Mexico City.
Edward Livingston pronounced this mission to Mexico the most important of all missions of the United States at that day.
Ellis filled his position well throughout most of the year 1836.
Within less than a week after the inauguration of President Van Buren, Ellis was appointed envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Mexico, but he did not proceed to his post until March 1839, remaining in Mexico for three years after that date.
Despite the difficulties of his position, he strove successfully in Mexico to secure the good will of that country, as well as to deserve the approval of his own.
When his career as a diplomat closed he returned to Mississippi.
In 1847 he was chosen a delegate from Adams County to the state Democratic convention, over which in June he was elected to preside.
Here he “especially defended the administration in regard to the war forced upon us by Mexico” (Mississippi Free Trader, Natchez, June 23, 1847).
Late in life he left Mississippi and returned to Virginia, where he hoped to purchase the old family homestead.
This pleasure was denied him.
Ellis spent his last days in Richmond, Virginia.
admitted to the Virginia bar
He was not brilliant, but was a man of unusual tact, dignity, uprightness, and common sense.
He was married on Feb. 28, 1831, to Eliza Rebecca Winn of Washington, C. , the beautiful daughter of Timothy Winn, a naval officer (Daily National Intelligencer, Mar. 2, 1831). They had two children, a son and a daughter.