for military purposes during the War of Independence. In 1779 he again sat in the assembly, this time representing Hartford. From 1777 to 1783 he was a member of the Continental Congress, and in this body he served on three important committees, the marine committee, the board of treasury, and the committee of appeals, the predecessors respectively of the navy and treasury departments and the Supreme Court under the Federal Constitution. From 1780 to 1785 he was a member of the governor’s council of Connecticut, which, with the lower house before 1784 and alone from 1784 to 1807, constituted a supreme court of errors; and from 1785 to 1789 he was a judge of the state superior court. In 1787, with Roger Sherman and William Samuel Johnson (1727–1819), he was one of Connecticut’s delegates to the constitutional convention at Philadelphia, in which his services were numerous and important. In particular, when disagreement seemed inevitable on the question of representation, he, with Roger Sherman, proposed what is known as the “Connecticut Compromise,” by which the Federal legislature was made to consist of two houses, the upper having equal representation from each state, the lower being chosen on the basis of population. Ellsworth also made a determined stand against a national paper currency. Being compelled to leave the convention before its adjournment, he did not sign the instrument, but used his influence to secure its ratification by his native state. From 1789 to 1796 he was one of the first senators from Connecticut under the new Constitution. In the senate he was looked upon as President Washington’s personal spokesman and as the leader of the Administration party. His most important service to his country was without a doubt in connexion with the establishment of the Federal judiciary. As chairman of the committee having the matter in charge, he drafted the bill by the enactment of which the system of Federal courts, almost as it is to-day, was established. He also took a leading part in the senate in securing the passage of laws for funding the national debt, assuming the state debts and establishing a United States bank. It was Ellsworth who suggested to Washington the sending of John Jay to England to negotiate a new treaty with Great Britain, and he probably did more than any other man to induce the senate, despite widespread and violent opposition, to ratify that treaty when negotiated. By President Washington’s appointment he became chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States in March 1796, and in 1799 President John Adams sent him, with William Vans Murray (1762–1803) and William R. Davie (1756–1820), to negotiate a new treaty with France. It was largely through the influence of Ellsworth, who took the principal part in the negotiations, that Napoleon consented to a convention, of the 30th of September 1800, which secured for citizens of the United States their ships captured by France but not yet condemned as prizes, provided for freedom of commerce between the two nations, stipulated that “free ships shall give a freedom to goods,” and contained provisions favourable to neutral commerce. While he was abroad, failing health compelled him (1800) to resign the chief-justiceship, and after some months in England he returned to America in 1801. In 1803 he was again elected to the governor’s council, and in 1807, on the reorganization of the Connecticut judiciary, was appointed chief justice of the new Supreme Court. He never took office, however, but died at his home in Windsor on the 27th of November 1807.
See W. G. Brown’s Oliver Ellsworth (New York, 1905), an excellent biography. There is also an appreciative account of Ellsworth’s life and work in H. C. Lodge’s A Fighting Frigate, and Other Essays and Addresses (New York, 1902), which contains in an appendix an interesting letter by Senator George F. Hoar concerning Ellsworth’s work in the constitutional convention.
ELLSWORTH, a city, port of entry and the county seat of
Hancock county, Maine, U.S.A., at the head of navigation on
the Union river (and about 334 m. from its mouth), about 30 m.
S.E. of Bangor. Pop. (1890) 4804; (1900) 4297 (189 foreign-born);
(1910) 3549. It is served by the Maine Central railway. The
fall of the river, about 85 ft. in 2 m., furnishes good water-power,
and the city has various manufactures, including lumber,
shoes, woollens, sails, carriages and foundry and machine shop
products, besides a large lumber trade. Shipbuilding was
formerly important. There is a large United States fish hatchery
here. The city is the port of entry for the Frenchman’s Bay
customs district, but its foreign trade is unimportant. Ellsworth
was first settled in 1763 and for some time was called New
Bowdoin; but when it was incorporated as a town in 1800 the
present name was adopted in honour of Oliver Ellsworth. A
city charter was secured in 1869.
ELLWANGEN, a town of Germany in the kingdom of
Württemberg, on the Jagst, 12 m. S.S.E. from Crailsheim on the
railway to Goldshöfe. Pop. 5000. It is romantically situated
between two hills, one crowned by the castle of Hohen-Ellwangen,
built in 1354 and now used as an agricultural college, and the
other, the Schönenberg, by the pilgrimage church of Our Lady
of Loreto, in the Jesuit style of architecture. The town possesses
one Evangelical and five Roman Catholic churches, among the
latter the Stiftskirche, the old abbey church, a Romanesque
building dating from 1124, and the Gothic St Wolfgangskirche.
The classical and modern schools (Gymnasium and Realschule)
occupy the buildings of a suppressed Jesuit college. The industries
include the making of parchment covers, of envelopes,
of wooden hafts and handles for tools, &c., and tanneries. There
are also a wool-market and a horse-market, the latter famous
in Germany.
The Benedictine abbey of Ellwangen is said to have been founded in 764 by Herulf, bishop of Langres; there is, however, no record of it before 814. In 1460 the abbey was converted, with the consent of Pope Pius II., into a Ritterstift (college or institution for noble pensioners) under a secular provost, who, in 1555, was raised to the dignity of a prince of the Empire. The provostship was secularized in 1803 and its territories were assigned to Württemberg. The town of Ellwangen, which grew up round the abbey and received the status of a town about the middle of the 14th century, was until 1803 the capital of the provostship.
See Seckler, Beschreibung der gefürsteten Probstei Ellwangen (Stuttgart, 1864); Beschreibung des Oberamts Ellwangen, published by the statistical bureau (Landesamt) at Ellwangen (1888). For a list of the abbots and provosts see Stokvis, Manuel d’histoire (Leiden, 1890–1893), iii. p. 242.
ELLWOOD, THOMAS (1639–1714), English author, was born
at Crowell, in Oxfordshire, in 1639. He is chiefly celebrated for
his connexion with Milton, and the principal facts of his life are
related in a very interesting autobiography, which contains
much information as to his intercourse with the poet. While
he was still young his father removed to London, where Thomas
became acquainted with a Quaker family named Pennington,
and was led to join the Society of Friends, a connexion which
subjected him to much persecution. It was through the Penningtons
that he was introduced in 1662 to Milton in the capacity of
Latin reader. He spent nearly every afternoon in the poet’s
house in Jewin Street, until the intercourse was interrupted
by an illness which compelled him to go to the country. After
a period of imprisonment in the old Bridewell prison and in
Newgate for Quakerism, Ellwood resumed his visits to Milton,
who was now residing at a house his friend had taken for him
at Chalfont St Giles. In 1665 Ellwood was again arrested and
imprisoned in Aylesbury gaol. When he visited Milton after
his release the poet gave him the manuscript of the Paradise
Lost to read. On returning the manuscript Ellwood said,
“Thou hast said much here of Paradise lost; but what hast
thou to say of Paradise found?” and when Milton long afterwards
in London showed him Paradise Regained, it was with
the remark, “This is owing to you, for you put it into my head
at Chalfont.” Ellwood was the friend of Fox and Penn, and was
the author of several polemical works in defence of the Quaker
position, of which Forgery no Christianity (1674) and The
Foundation of Tithes Shaken (1678) deserve mention. His
Sacred Histories of the Old and New Testaments appeared in 1705
and 1709. He also published some volumes of poems, among
them a Davideis in five books. He died on the 1st of March 1714.
The History of the Life of Thomas Ellwood: written by his own hand (1714) has been many times reprinted.
