ELLIS, JOHN (1811-1895)

ELLIS, JOHN, teacher, clerk, and insurance agent; b. Skene parish, near Kintore, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, 10 Aug 1811, s/o George Ellis and Mary Laing; m. 1st, 1841, Mary Watt, sister of Patrick Watt, and 2nd, 1876, Jane Robertson, both natives of Scotland; d. Chatham, 14 Feb 1895.

John Ellis came to the Miramichi in the brig ALBION in May 1835, accompanied by his mother. He taught school for several years in Newcastle parish and then worked as a bookkeeper with William Abrams & Co. Later he was accountant and confidential clerk to the lawyer George Kerr. After Kerr's death he took over the insurance agency which Kerr had conducted in association with his law practice. He was said to have been methodical in all that he did and, like his employer, a successful investor.

For some years, Ellis farmed a property which he and his family occupied near Ferry Road. They later lived in a house in Chatham surrounded by beautiful gardens. An adherent of the Presbyterian church, he had a reputation for being hospitable and charitable. He was survived in 1895 by his second wife, Jane Robertson, who was twenty-seven years his junior, a son and a daughter from his first marriage, and a thirteen-year-old daughter, Muriel Ellis, who was later a teacher on the staff of the Chatham Grammar School.