Blair County PA Archives Biographies.....Ellsworth, Josiah F. July 18, 1827 - ????
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Source: Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Blair Co, PA: Philadelphia, 1892.
Author: Samuel T. Wiley

JOSIAH F. ELLSWORTH,
of Williamsburg, a worthy descendant of one of the old and highly respected
families of the United States, has probably erected more first-class flouring
mills than any other man in the Keystone State.  He is a son of Thomas and
Margaret (Gibson) Ellsworth, and was born near Shippensburg, Cumberland
county, Pennsylvania, July 18, 1827.  The Ellsworth family in America was
founded in 1863 by Arthur Ellsworth, one of three brothers who came from
Wales in that year to one of the New England States.  The paternal
great-grandfather of Mr. Ellsworth was a lineal descendant of Arthur
Ellsworth, and was a member of the celebrated Tea Party of American history,
who threw the tea overboard in Boston Harbor in 1773.  He served throughout
the Revolutionary War, and his son, Arthur Ellsworth (grandfather), was born
in Connecticut, where he died at an advanced age in 1830, and left several
children, one of whom, Thomas Ellsworth (father), was born in Connet county,
that State, in 1795.  In early life he came with several capitalists to
eastern Pennsylvania, where they built a saw mill and engaged in the lumber
business.  He had an interest in this lumber enterprise, and died in 1835, at
Hancock, Maryland, where he had gone for the purpose of developing some new
lumbering territory.  Thomas Ellsworth was a man of good business ability,
and had fine prospects for a very successful career in lumbering at the time
of his death, when he was only in the prime of manhood.  He married Margaret
Gibson, who died in 1884, aged eighty-three years, and was a daughter of John
Gibson, a Scotch-Irishman from the north of Ireland, who settled at Kennedy,
Cumberland county, where he followed school teaching until his death in 1820,
at an early age.  Mr. and Mrs. Ellsworth were the parents of five children,
three sons and two daughters:  Margaret E. Coan, of Carlisle, Pennsylvania;
John W., who owns a large cattle and horse ranch at Slack's Canon, Monterey
county, California, where he now resides; Charles B., a harness maker of
Johnstown, this State; Josiah F.; and Harriet, who died in 1848, in Wapello
county, southeastern Iowa.
      Josiah F. Ellsworth received his education in the early common schools
of Cumberland and Blair Counties, and at seventeen years of age was bound as
an apprentice to J. S. Shull, of Blair county, for a term of four years, to
learn the trade of millwright.  At the end of his apprenticeship he became
foreman on the millwrighting contracts of J. B. Anderson, of near Alexandra,
Huntingdon county, but soon left his employ and commenced work for himself,
which he followed continuously until 1864.  In that year he engaged in
contracting, which he pursued very successfully for twenty-eight years, when
(1892) he retired from actual business.
      In March, 1851, Josiah F. Ellsworth married Mary J. Irwin, who was a
daughter of Thomas and Catherine Irvin, of Williamsburg, and died July 6,
1870.  On January 7, 1873, he wedded Elizabeth P., daughter of Charles and
Rachel Biddel.  By his first marriage he had six children, of whom two sons
and one daughter are living:  Elmer E., president of the Riverside Milling
company, of Little Falls, Minnesota; Grier M., a clerk in the offices of the
Pennsylvania Railroad company at Altoona; and Carrie S., wife of Charles
Ramey, a real estate agent of Hays City, Kansas.
      In politics Mr. Ellsworth was a republican until a few years ago, when
he identified himself with the Prohibition party.  He has been a ruling elder
for twenty years of the Presbyterian church, of which his wife is a member. 
He is a member of Juniata Lodge, No. 282, Free and Accepted Masons, of
Hollidaysburg, and of Orphan Home Lodge, No. 315, Independent Order of Odd
Fellows, of Williamsburg.  Mr. Ellsworth, in addition to his property at
Williamsburg, owns a farm of two hundred and thirteen acres of good land on
Clover Creek.  Josiah F. Ellsworth was remarkably successful as a contractor
and mill builder, and his work was so excellent in durability and quality
that his services were in great demand beyond his own county.  He erected the
large flouring mill for the Cambria Iron company at Johnstown, this State, the
flouring mills of Brown & Biddle, at Johnson City, Tennessee, besides the
commodious and well appointed mills of D. M. Bare, of Roaring Spring, and
fifty-seven other improved roller process flouring mills in the Juniata
Valley and other parts of Pennsylvania.  As evidence of his expedition, in
connection with his thorough workmanship, it is only necessary to state that
he built the sixty mills referred to in about thirteen years.  Mr. Ellsworth
is an intelligent gentleman, a good citizen, and a man who stands high in his
community.

Additional Comments:
Originally submitted 2001. Transcribed by Lisa McLaughlin lmclaughlin3@neo.rr.com

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