- William W. Ellsworth
William W. Ellsworth (1791-1868) was a Yale-educated attorney who served as Governor of Connecticut, a three-term United States Congressman, a Justice on the State Supreme Court, and who twice turned down nomination to the state's United States Senate seat. Born in Windsor on
November 10 ,1791 , he was the son of Founding FatherOliver Ellsworth , and son-in-law ofNoah Webster , who named Ellsworth executor of his will. His twin brother wasHenry Leavitt Ellsworth , first Commissioner of the United States Patent Office.Ellsworth completed preparatory studies, and graduated from
Yale College in 1810. He studied law atTapping Reeve 'sLitchfield Law School in Litchfield, was admitted to the bar and practiced. Ellsworth was appointed professor of law at Trinity College in 1827, which position he held until his death. William Wolcott Ellsworth was married to Emily S. Webster, eldest daughter of Rebecca Greenleaf andNoah Webster Jr., a farmer's son who began publishing dictionaries. Noah Webster named Ellsworth as one of the executors of his will of 1843.Among Ellsworth's Yale classmates was
Samuel F. B. Morse , whose idea of the telegraph would later be championed by Ellsworth's twin brotherHenry Leavitt Ellsworth during his term as the first Commissioner of theUnited States Patent and Trademark Office . [ [http://books.google.com/books?id=cyQWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA183&lpg=PA183&dq=%22william+wolcott+ellsworth%22&source=web&ots=PEWpdWp0a7&sig=1d5b9Ibwyna_ZSYmaIAmMjsN-MY&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=10&ct=result The Governors of Connecticut, Frederick Calvin Norton, Connecticut Magazine Co., Hartford, 1905] ]
U. S. Patent OfficeEllsworth's law partner starting in 1817 was his brother-in-law
Chief Justice of theConnecticut Supreme Court Thomas Scott Williams , who was elected to the U.S. Congress that year and sought a younger partner to manage his practice in his absence. (Judge Williams was married to Ellsworth's sister.) [ [http://www.cslib.org/memorials/williamst.htm Chief Justice Williams, Memorials of Connecticut Judges and Attorneys as Printed in the Connecticut Reports, Vol. 29, Pages 611-614, Connecticut State Library, cslib.org] ] Aged 26, Ellsworth took up the reins of Congressman Williams' law practice, the largest in the state.He was elected as an Anti-Jacksonian to the Twenty-first, Twenty-second, and Twenty-third
United States Congresses and served fromMarch 4 ,1829 , toJuly 8 ,1834 when he resigned. He was electedGovernor of Connecticut 1838-1842. He then became judge of theConnecticut Supreme Court from 1847 to 1861, when, by the constitutional provision relative to age, he retired. He twice declined to accept the nomination to theUnited States Senate , and retired from public life. Ellsworth died in Hartford onJanuary 15 ,1868 . The former Congressman and Governor is interred at the Old North Cemetery in Hartford.The lawyer and orator
Rufus Choate said of Ellsworth before the Massachusetts General Assembly: "If the land of Shermans, Griswolds, Daggets and Williams, rich as she is in learning and virtue, has a sounder lawyer, a more upright magistrate, or an honester man in her public service, I know not his name."References
*CongBio|E000150
External links
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=19075 Grave of William Wolcott Ellsworth, Old North Cemetery, Hartford, Ct., Findagrave.com]
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