Henry Leavitt Ellsworth
Encyclopedia
Henry Leavitt Ellsworth (November 10, 1791 – December 27, 1858) was a Yale-educated attorney who became the first Commissioner of the U.S. Patent Office
, where he encouraged innovation by inventors Samuel F.B. Morse and Samuel Colt
. Ellsworth also served as the second president of the Aetna Insurance Company
, and was a major donor to Yale College
, a commissioner to Indian tribes on the western frontier, and the founder of what became the United States Department of Agriculture
.
, son of Founding Father
and Chief Justice
Oliver Ellsworth
and Abigail Wolcott
. Ellsworth graduated from Yale University
in 1810, and studied law at Tapping Reeve
's Litchfield Law School
in 1811. On June 22, 1813, he married Nancy Allen Goodrich (daughter of Congressman, Judge, New Haven
Mayor
and longtime Secretary
of the Yale Corporation
Elizur Goodrich
and his wife Anne Willard Allen) with whom Ellsworth had three children.
Later in life, he had two subsequent wives, Marietta Mariana Bartlett and Catherine Smith. Ellsworth was named in part for his grandmother's family, the Leavitts of Suffield, Connecticut
. After studying law under Judge Gould in Litchfield, Connecticut
, he settled first at Windsor and then at Hartford
, where he remained for a decade.
in present-day Ohio to investigate family lands in the region. Ellsworth's father Oliver Ellsworth had purchased over 41000 acres (165.9 km²) in the Western Reserve, including most of present-day Cleveland, joining with other prominent Connecticut men snapping up over three million acres (12,000 km²) sold by the state of Connecticut. (Among the eight original purchasers was a family relation, merchant Thaddeus Leavitt
of Suffield.) Ellsworth wrote a small, uneven book about his experiences entitled A Tour to New Connecticut in 1811. Ellsworth's mission was straightening out irregularities in land sales by the family agent.
It was an arduous trip. Along the way Ellsworth made note of attractive vistas, rowdy drunks, solicitous innkeepers and his disappointment in places of which he had heard, like Erie. The journey's rigors were relieved by a meeting with his old friend Margaret Dwight, daughter of Yale president Timothy Dwight
, who was visiting family in present-day Warren, Ohio
. "Here too", wrote Ellsworth, "I met with my good old friend Margaret Dwight, we sat down and passed a few hours in social chat." Dwight wrote her own account of her Western Reserve trip, A Journey to Ohio in 1810.
Over twenty years later, in 1832, Ellsworth traveled west again, this time as U.S. Commissioner of Indian Tribes in Arkansas
and Oklahoma
. President Andrew Jackson
appointed Ellsworth one of three commissioners to "study the country, to mark the boundaries, to pacify the warring Indians and, in general to establish order and justice" after Congress's passage of the 1830 Indian Removal Act
. Ellsworth travelled to Fort Gibson
to investigate the situation. (Some critics blame Ellsworth for being complicit in the subsequent removal of Native Americans
to Indian Territory
, present-day Oklahoma, particularly since Ellsworth's appointment and subsequent western trip followed the Indian Removal Act, Andrew Jackson's first significant act as President. Other historians note Ellsworth's sympathetic outlook towards the tribes.)
Along the way, Ellsworth made stops in Cincinnati
and Louisville
, then traveled on to St. Louis, Missouri
, where he met with explorer William Clark and saw the recently captured Native American leader Black Hawk
, chief of the Sauk and Fox tribe. Leavitt's mission was a complicated one: he was charged with trying to mediate between the conflicting claims of several Indian tribes, who were being forced into an ever-smaller area, in competition with newer immigrants and the interests of the Chouteau
family, the powerful St. Louis magnates of the Midwestern fur trade.
Ellsworth was accompanied on the expedition by three companions: author Washington Irving
, who recorded his impressions in A Tour on the Prairies; Charles La Trobe
, an Englishman
, mountaineer
and travel writer who later served in the British diplomatic corps
in the West Indies and Australia
; and Swiss Count
Albert Pourtales.
Washington Irving wrote of Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, "this worthy leader of our little band": "He was a native of one of the towns of Connecticut, a man in whom a course of legal practice and political life had not been able to vitiate an innate simplicity and benevolence of heart. The greater part of his days had been passed in the bosom of his family and the society of deacons, elders, and statesmen, on the peaceful banks of the Connecticut; when suddenly he had been called to mount his steed, shoulder his rifle and mingle among stark hunters, backwoodsmen, and naked savages, on the trackless wilds of the Far West."
, an office he held for ten years, from 1835 until 1845. His twin brother William W. Ellsworth
was Governor of Connecticut from 1838 to 1842, and served as a U.S. Congressman from Connecticut as well. William Wolcott Ellsworth was married to the daughter of Noah Webster
, the publisher of the eponymous dictionaries.
When he arrived at the Patent Office, Ellsworth found one third of the floor-space in his office occupied by over 60 models of inventions; he moved them to a separate room. He also found that no list of patent applicants had ever been drawn up, a deficiency he soon corrected.
Acting as Patent Commissioner, Ellsworth made a decision that profoundly affected the future of Hartford and Connecticut. The young Samuel Colt
was struggling to establish a firm to manufacture his new revolver. Ellsworth became interested in Colt's invention, and in 1836 made the decision to issue Colt U.S. Patent No. 138. On the basis of Ellsworth's decision, Colt was able to raise some $200,000 from investors to incorporate the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company of Paterson, New Jersey
, the forerunner of the mighty Colt arms
manufacturing empire.
In today's world Ellsworth would be described as an early technology adapter. He became so interested, for instance, in a new-fangled invention by Samuel Morse called the telegraph that Ellsworth petitioned Congress for a $30,000 grant to test the possibilities of the technology.
From Ellsworth's exposure to the West
and knowledge of inventions, he prophesied late in life that the lands of the West would be cultivated by means of steam plows. This prophecy was introduced in the probate of his will in an attempt to prove that he was of unsound mind.
Ellsworth was proven correct, of course, and his interest in agriculture during his time as Patent Commissioner induced Congress in 1839 to appropriate the first monies for farming, which were used to collect seeds from foreign countries and distribute them through the United States post office, as Ellsworth had urged. By 1845 Ellsworth's patent office was performing the functions of a full-fledged agricultural bureau. For this accomplishment Ellsworth earned the sobriquet "Father of the United States Department of Agriculture
."
A comment by Ellsworth about the increased workload at the patent office, taken out of context and embellished, was apparently the source of an urban legend
that a patent office official (Charles H. Duell
in some versions) claimed that everything which could be invented had already been invented.
Following Ellsworth's stint in the Patent Office, he settled in Lafayette, Indiana
, acting as an agent for purchase and settlement of public land, but in 1857 he returned to Connecticut. Ellsworth later served as an early president of the Aetna Insurance Company
. He was an early benefactor of Yale College
, donating some $700,000 to his alma mater, as well as title to the Ellsworth lands in the former Western Reserve.
, whose sister Nancy Henry Leavitt Ellsworth married. The journal of Ellsworth's first trip to New Connecticut came to the Yale University Library
as part of the Goodrich Family Collection. The former patent commissioner's papers today make up the Henry Leavitt Ellsworth Papers at Yale's Sterling Library.
Annie Goodrich Ellsworth, only daughter of Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, married the publisher Roswell Smith, who with his partner Josiah Gilbert Holland
founded, in partnership with the publishing house Charles Scribner & Co.
, Scribner's Monthly
and St. Nicholas
magazines. Later Smith founded the publishing house The Century Company
, and assumed sole ownership of both magazines. He changed the name of Scribner's Monthly to The Century. His wife, the former Anna G. Ellsworth, dictated the inaugural message on Samuel F. B. Morse's new telegraph system. "What hath God wrought
" read the message, suggested by her mother, the wife of Morse's great champion Henry Leavitt Ellsworth. The daughter of Roswell Smith and Anna G. Leavitt married the American artist landscape painter George Inness, Jr.
United States Patent and Trademark Office
The United States Patent and Trademark Office is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that issues patents to inventors and businesses for their inventions, and trademark registration for product and intellectual property identification.The USPTO is based in Alexandria, Virginia,...
, where he encouraged innovation by inventors Samuel F.B. Morse and Samuel Colt
Samuel Colt
Samuel Colt was an American inventor and industrialist. He was the founder of Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company , and is widely credited with popularizing the revolver. Colt's innovative contributions to the weapons industry have been described by arms historian James E...
. Ellsworth also served as the second president of the Aetna Insurance Company
Aetna
Aetna, Inc. is an American health insurance company, providing a range of traditional and consumer directed health care insurance products and related services, including medical, pharmaceutical, dental, behavioral health, group life, long-term care, and disability plans, and medical management...
, and was a major donor to Yale College
Yale College
Yale College was the official name of Yale University from 1718 to 1887. The name now refers to the undergraduate part of the university. Each undergraduate student is assigned to one of 12 residential colleges.-Residential colleges:...
, a commissioner to Indian tribes on the western frontier, and the founder of what became the United States Department of Agriculture
United States Department of Agriculture
The United States Department of Agriculture is the United States federal executive department responsible for developing and executing U.S. federal government policy on farming, agriculture, and food...
.
Early life
Ellsworth was born in Windsor, ConnecticutWindsor, Connecticut
Windsor is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States, and was the first English settlement in the state. It lies on the northern border of Connecticut's capital, Hartford. The population was estimated at 28,778 in 2005....
, son of Founding Father
Founding Fathers of the United States
The Founding Fathers of the United States of America were political leaders and statesmen who participated in the American Revolution by signing the United States Declaration of Independence, taking part in the American Revolutionary War, establishing the United States Constitution, or by some...
and Chief Justice
Chief Justice
The Chief Justice in many countries is the name for the presiding member of a Supreme Court in Commonwealth or other countries with an Anglo-Saxon justice system based on English common law, such as the Supreme Court of Canada, the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the Court of Final Appeal of...
Oliver Ellsworth
Oliver Ellsworth
Oliver Ellsworth was an American lawyer and politician, a revolutionary against British rule, a drafter of the United States Constitution, and the third Chief Justice of the United States. While at the Federal Convention, Ellsworth moved to strike the word National from the motion made by Edmund...
and Abigail Wolcott
Roger Wolcott (Connecticut)
Roger Wolcott was an American weaver and statesman from Windsor, Connecticut. He served as colonial governor of Connecticut from 1751 to 1754.Roger was born to Simon and Martha Wolcott in Windsor, Connecticut...
. Ellsworth graduated from Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
in 1810, and studied law at Tapping Reeve
Tapping Reeve
Tapping Reeve was an American lawyer and law educator. In 1784, he opened the Litchfield Law School in Litchfield, Connecticut, the first school to offer a comprehensive legal curriculum in the United States....
's Litchfield Law School
Litchfield Law School
The Litchfield Law School of Litchfield, Connecticut, was the first formal school offering training for the legal profession in the United States. It was established in 1784 by Tapping Reeve, who would later became the Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court...
in 1811. On June 22, 1813, he married Nancy Allen Goodrich (daughter of Congressman, Judge, New Haven
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...
Mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
and longtime Secretary
Secretary
A secretary, or administrative assistant, is a person whose work consists of supporting management, including executives, using a variety of project management, communication & organizational skills. These functions may be entirely carried out to assist one other employee or may be for the benefit...
of the Yale Corporation
Yale Corporation
The Yale Corporation, sometimes, and more formally, known as The President and Fellows of Yale College, is the governing body of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.The Corporation comprises 19 members:...
Elizur Goodrich
Elizur Goodrich
Elizur Goodrich was an American lawyer and politician from Connecticut.-Biography:Born in Durham, Connecticut, he was the son of Elizur Goodrich. He graduated from Yale in 1779, was a tutor there from 1781 to 1783, and studied law. After his admission to the bar in 1783, he practiced in New Haven...
and his wife Anne Willard Allen) with whom Ellsworth had three children.
Later in life, he had two subsequent wives, Marietta Mariana Bartlett and Catherine Smith. Ellsworth was named in part for his grandmother's family, the Leavitts of Suffield, Connecticut
Suffield, Connecticut
Suffield is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. It had once been within the boundaries of Massachusetts. The town is located in the Connecticut River Valley with the town of Enfield neighboring to the east. In 1900, 3,521 people lived in Suffield; and in 1910, 3,841. As of the...
. After studying law under Judge Gould in Litchfield, Connecticut
Litchfield, Connecticut
Litchfield is a town in and former county seat of Litchfield County, Connecticut, United States, and is known as an affluent summer resort. The population was 8,316 at the 2000 census. The boroughs of Bantam and Litchfield are located within the town...
, he settled first at Windsor and then at Hartford
Hartford, Connecticut
Hartford is the capital of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960, it is the second most populous city on New England's largest river, the Connecticut River. As of the 2010 Census, Hartford's population was 124,775, making...
, where he remained for a decade.
Travels
In 1811, when he was 19 years old and a freshly minted Yale graduate, Ellsworth undertook the first of several western trips during his lifetime. Ellsworth traveled by horseback to the Connecticut Western ReserveConnecticut Western Reserve
The Connecticut Western Reserve was land claimed by Connecticut from 1662 to 1800 in the Northwest Territory in what is now northeastern Ohio.-History:...
in present-day Ohio to investigate family lands in the region. Ellsworth's father Oliver Ellsworth had purchased over 41000 acres (165.9 km²) in the Western Reserve, including most of present-day Cleveland, joining with other prominent Connecticut men snapping up over three million acres (12,000 km²) sold by the state of Connecticut. (Among the eight original purchasers was a family relation, merchant Thaddeus Leavitt
Thaddeus Leavitt
Thaddeus Leavitt was a Suffield, Connecticut, merchant who invented an early cotton gin, as well as joining with seven other Connecticut men to purchase most of the three-million-plus acres of the Western Reserve lands in Ohio from the government of Connecticut, land on which some of his family...
of Suffield.) Ellsworth wrote a small, uneven book about his experiences entitled A Tour to New Connecticut in 1811. Ellsworth's mission was straightening out irregularities in land sales by the family agent.
It was an arduous trip. Along the way Ellsworth made note of attractive vistas, rowdy drunks, solicitous innkeepers and his disappointment in places of which he had heard, like Erie. The journey's rigors were relieved by a meeting with his old friend Margaret Dwight, daughter of Yale president Timothy Dwight
Timothy Dwight
Timothy Dwight may refer to:*Timothy Dwight College, a residential college at Yale University*Timothy Dwight IV , President of Yale University from 1795–1817*Timothy Dwight V , President of Yale University from 1886–1899...
, who was visiting family in present-day Warren, Ohio
Warren, Ohio
As of the census of 2000, there were 46,832 people, 19,288 households and 12,035 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,912.4 people per square mile . There were 21,279 housing units at an average density of 1,322.9 per square mile...
. "Here too", wrote Ellsworth, "I met with my good old friend Margaret Dwight, we sat down and passed a few hours in social chat." Dwight wrote her own account of her Western Reserve trip, A Journey to Ohio in 1810.
Over twenty years later, in 1832, Ellsworth traveled west again, this time as U.S. Commissioner of Indian Tribes in Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
and Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
. President Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States . Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend , and the British at the Battle of New Orleans...
appointed Ellsworth one of three commissioners to "study the country, to mark the boundaries, to pacify the warring Indians and, in general to establish order and justice" after Congress's passage of the 1830 Indian Removal Act
Indian Removal Act
The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830.The Removal Act was strongly supported in the South, where states were eager to gain access to lands inhabited by the Five Civilized Tribes. In particular, Georgia, the largest state at that time, was involved in...
. Ellsworth travelled to Fort Gibson
Fort Gibson
Fort Gibson, now located in Oklahoma and designated Fort Gibson Historical Site, guarded the American frontier in Indian Territory from 1824 until 1890...
to investigate the situation. (Some critics blame Ellsworth for being complicit in the subsequent removal of Native Americans
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
to Indian Territory
Indian Territory
The Indian Territory, also known as the Indian Territories and the Indian Country, was land set aside within the United States for the settlement of American Indians...
, present-day Oklahoma, particularly since Ellsworth's appointment and subsequent western trip followed the Indian Removal Act, Andrew Jackson's first significant act as President. Other historians note Ellsworth's sympathetic outlook towards the tribes.)
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...
and Louisville
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
, then traveled on to St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
, where he met with explorer William Clark and saw the recently captured Native American leader Black Hawk
Black Hawk (chief)
Black Hawk was a leader and warrior of the Sauk American Indian tribe in what is now the United States. Although he had inherited an important historic medicine bundle, he was not one of the Sauk's hereditary civil chiefs...
, chief of the Sauk and Fox tribe. Leavitt's mission was a complicated one: he was charged with trying to mediate between the conflicting claims of several Indian tribes, who were being forced into an ever-smaller area, in competition with newer immigrants and the interests of the Chouteau
Chouteau
Chouteau was the name of a highly successful French fur-trading family based in St. Louis, Missouri, members of which established posts in the Midwest and Western United States...
family, the powerful St. Louis magnates of the Midwestern fur trade.
Ellsworth was accompanied on the expedition by three companions: author Washington Irving
Washington Irving
Washington Irving was an American author, essayist, biographer and historian of the early 19th century. He was best known for his short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle", both of which appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works...
, who recorded his impressions in A Tour on the Prairies; Charles La Trobe
Charles La Trobe
Charles Joseph La Trobe was the first lieutenant-governor of the colony of Victoria .-Early life:La Trobe was born in London, the son of Christian Ignatius Latrobe, a family of Huguenot origin...
, an Englishman
Englishman
Englishman may refer to:*English people*Grey Partridge*Jason Englishman, Canadian rock music singer and guitarist*Jenny-Bea Englishman, real name of the Canadien singer Esthero*Erald Briscoe, reggae musician who records under the name Englishman...
, mountaineer
Mountaineer
-Sports:*Mountaineering, the sport, hobby or profession of walking, hiking, trekking and climbing up mountains, also known as alpinism-University athletic teams and mascots:*Appalachian State Mountaineers, the athletic teams of Appalachian State University...
and travel writer who later served in the British diplomatic corps
Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service
Her Majesty's Diplomatic Service is the diplomatic service of the United Kingdom, dealing with foreign affairs, as opposed to the Home Civil Service, which deals with domestic affairs...
in the West Indies and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
; and Swiss Count
Count
A count or countess is an aristocratic nobleman in European countries. The word count came into English from the French comte, itself from Latin comes—in its accusative comitem—meaning "companion", and later "companion of the emperor, delegate of the emperor". The adjective form of the word is...
Albert Pourtales.
Washington Irving wrote of Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, "this worthy leader of our little band": "He was a native of one of the towns of Connecticut, a man in whom a course of legal practice and political life had not been able to vitiate an innate simplicity and benevolence of heart. The greater part of his days had been passed in the bosom of his family and the society of deacons, elders, and statesmen, on the peaceful banks of the Connecticut; when suddenly he had been called to mount his steed, shoulder his rifle and mingle among stark hunters, backwoodsmen, and naked savages, on the trackless wilds of the Far West."
Patent Office
In 1835, Ellsworth was elected mayor of Hartford, Connecticut, but had served only a month when he was appointed the first Commissioner of the U.S. Patent OfficeUnited States Patent and Trademark Office
The United States Patent and Trademark Office is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that issues patents to inventors and businesses for their inventions, and trademark registration for product and intellectual property identification.The USPTO is based in Alexandria, Virginia,...
, an office he held for ten years, from 1835 until 1845. His twin brother William W. Ellsworth
William W. Ellsworth
William Wolcott Ellsworth was a Yale-educated attorney who served as the 30th 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...
was Governor of Connecticut from 1838 to 1842, and served as a U.S. Congressman from Connecticut as well. William Wolcott Ellsworth was married to the daughter of Noah Webster
Noah Webster
Noah Webster was an American educator, lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and prolific author...
, the publisher of the eponymous dictionaries.
When he arrived at the Patent Office, Ellsworth found one third of the floor-space in his office occupied by over 60 models of inventions; he moved them to a separate room. He also found that no list of patent applicants had ever been drawn up, a deficiency he soon corrected.
Acting as Patent Commissioner, Ellsworth made a decision that profoundly affected the future of Hartford and Connecticut. The young Samuel Colt
Samuel Colt
Samuel Colt was an American inventor and industrialist. He was the founder of Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company , and is widely credited with popularizing the revolver. Colt's innovative contributions to the weapons industry have been described by arms historian James E...
was struggling to establish a firm to manufacture his new revolver. Ellsworth became interested in Colt's invention, and in 1836 made the decision to issue Colt U.S. Patent No. 138. On the basis of Ellsworth's decision, Colt was able to raise some $200,000 from investors to incorporate the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company of Paterson, New Jersey
Paterson, New Jersey
Paterson is a city serving as the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, its population was 146,199, rendering it New Jersey's third largest city and one of the largest cities in the New York City Metropolitan Area, despite a decrease of 3,023...
, the forerunner of the mighty Colt arms
Colt's Manufacturing Company
Colt's Manufacturing Company is a United States firearms manufacturer, whose first predecessor corporation was founded in 1836 by Sam Colt. Colt is best known for the engineering, production, and marketing of firearms over the later half of the 19th and the 20th century...
manufacturing empire.
In today's world Ellsworth would be described as an early technology adapter. He became so interested, for instance, in a new-fangled invention by Samuel Morse called the telegraph that Ellsworth petitioned Congress for a $30,000 grant to test the possibilities of the technology.
From Ellsworth's exposure to the West
Western United States
.The Western United States, commonly referred to as the American West or simply "the West," traditionally refers to the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. Because the U.S. expanded westward after its founding, the meaning of the West has evolved over time...
and knowledge of inventions, he prophesied late in life that the lands of the West would be cultivated by means of steam plows. This prophecy was introduced in the probate of his will in an attempt to prove that he was of unsound mind.
Ellsworth was proven correct, of course, and his interest in agriculture during his time as Patent Commissioner induced Congress in 1839 to appropriate the first monies for farming, which were used to collect seeds from foreign countries and distribute them through the United States post office, as Ellsworth had urged. By 1845 Ellsworth's patent office was performing the functions of a full-fledged agricultural bureau. For this accomplishment Ellsworth earned the sobriquet "Father of the United States Department of Agriculture
United States Department of Agriculture
The United States Department of Agriculture is the United States federal executive department responsible for developing and executing U.S. federal government policy on farming, agriculture, and food...
."
A comment by Ellsworth about the increased workload at the patent office, taken out of context and embellished, was apparently the source of an urban legend
Urban legend
An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...
that a patent office official (Charles H. Duell
Charles H. Duell
Charles Holland Duell was the commissioner of the United States Patent and Trademark Office in 1899, and was later a United States federal judge....
in some versions) claimed that everything which could be invented had already been invented.
Following Ellsworth's stint in the Patent Office, he settled in Lafayette, Indiana
Lafayette, Indiana
Lafayette is a city in and the county seat of Tippecanoe County, Indiana, United States, northwest of Indianapolis. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 67,140. West Lafayette, on the other side of the Wabash River, is home to Purdue University, which has a large impact on...
, acting as an agent for purchase and settlement of public land, but in 1857 he returned to Connecticut. Ellsworth later served as an early president of the Aetna Insurance Company
Aetna
Aetna, Inc. is an American health insurance company, providing a range of traditional and consumer directed health care insurance products and related services, including medical, pharmaceutical, dental, behavioral health, group life, long-term care, and disability plans, and medical management...
. He was an early benefactor of Yale College
Yale College
Yale College was the official name of Yale University from 1718 to 1887. The name now refers to the undergraduate part of the university. Each undergraduate student is assigned to one of 12 residential colleges.-Residential colleges:...
, donating some $700,000 to his alma mater, as well as title to the Ellsworth lands in the former Western Reserve.
Legacy
Ellsworth died, aged 67, on December 27, 1858 in Fair Haven, Connecticut. Following his death, Ellsworth's papers were discovered among the family papers of the Goodrich family. Ellsworth was a Yale classmate of Chauncey Allen GoodrichChauncey Allen Goodrich
Chauncey Allen Goodrich was an American clergyman, educator and lexicographer. He was the son-in-law of Noah Webster and edited his Dictionary after his father-in-law's death.-Family:...
, whose sister Nancy Henry Leavitt Ellsworth married. The journal of Ellsworth's first trip to New Connecticut came to the Yale University Library
Yale University Library
Yale University Library is the library system of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. It is the second-largest academic library in the North America, with approximately 12.5 million volumes housed in 20 buildings on campus...
as part of the Goodrich Family Collection. The former patent commissioner's papers today make up the Henry Leavitt Ellsworth Papers at Yale's Sterling Library.
Josiah Gilbert Holland
Josiah Gilbert Holland was an American novelist and poet who also wrote under the pseudonym Timothy Titcomb. He helped to found and edit Scribner's Monthly , in which appeared his novels, Arthur Bonnicastle, The Story of Sevenoaks, Nicholas Minturn...
founded, in partnership with the publishing house Charles Scribner & Co.
Charles Scribner I
Charles Scribner I was a New Yorker who, with Isaac D. Baker , founded a publishing company that would eventually become Charles Scribner's Sons.-Biography:...
, Scribner's Monthly
Scribner's Magazine
Scribner's Magazine was an American periodical published by the publishing house of Charles Scribner's Sons from January 1887 to May 1939. Scribner's Magazine was the second magazine out of the "Scribner's" firm, after the publication of Scribner's Monthly...
and St. Nicholas
St. Nicholas Magazine
St. Nicholas Magazine was a popular children's magazine, founded by Scribner's in 1873. The first editor was Mary Mapes Dodge, who continued her association with the magazine until her death in 1905. Dodge published work by the country's best writers, including Louisa May Alcott, Francis Hodgson...
magazines. Later Smith founded the publishing house The Century Company
The Century Company
The Century Company was an American publishing company, founded in 1881.It was originally a subsidiary of Charles Scribner's Sons, but was bought and renamed. The magazine it had published up to that time, Scribners Monthly, was renamed The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine.The Century Company...
, and assumed sole ownership of both magazines. He changed the name of Scribner's Monthly to The Century. His wife, the former Anna G. Ellsworth, dictated the inaugural message on Samuel F. B. Morse's new telegraph system. "What hath God wrought
What hath God wrought
"What hath God wrought" is a phrase from the Book of Numbers and may refer to:*"What hath God wrought", a message in American Morse code sent by Samuel F. B...
" read the message, suggested by her mother, the wife of Morse's great champion Henry Leavitt Ellsworth. The daughter of Roswell Smith and Anna G. Leavitt married the American artist landscape painter George Inness, Jr.
George Inness, Jr.
George Inness, Jr. January 5, 1854 - July 27, 1926 was one of America’s foremost figure and landscape artists and the son of George Inness, an important American landscape painter....
External links
- http://www.indianahistory.org/library/manuscripts/collection_guides/sc2378.html Henry L. Ellsworth Circular, 1837, Indiana Historical Society, Manuscripts & Archives
- http://aghalloffame.com/hall/ellsworth.aspx Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, National Agricultural Hall of Fame
- http://mssa.library.yale.edu/findaids/stream.php?xmlfile=mssa.ms.0196.xml Guide to the Henry Leavitt Ellsworth Papers, Yale University Library
- http://images.lib.uconn.edu/cdm-cho/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/cho&CISOPTR=166&CISOBOX=1&REC=1 500 Farmers Wanted, Advertisement for Land Sale by Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, Lafayette, Indiana, April 29, 1847, Connecticut History Online
- Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, of Connecticut, New York Public Library Digital Gallery
Further reading
- A Tour to New Connecticut in 1811: The Narrative of Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, Phillip R. Shriver (ed.), Volume I of the Western Reserve History Studies Series, The Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, 1985
- Washington Irving on the Prairie: Or, A Narrative of a Tour of the Southwest in the Year 1832, Henry Leavitt Ellsworth, (edited by Stanley Thomas Williams and Barbara Damon Simison), American Book Company, 1937
- A Letter on the Cultivation of the Prairies, Hon. H. L. Ellsworth, Published by S. Augustus Mitchell, Philadelphia, 1837
- Improvements in Agriculture, Arts, & C. of the United States, Hon. Henry L. Ellsworth, Greeley & McElrath, New York, 1843
See also
- Samuel F. B. MorseSamuel F. B. MorseSamuel Finley Breese Morse was an American contributor to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs, co-inventor of the Morse code, and an accomplished painter.-Birth and education:...
- Samuel ColtSamuel ColtSamuel Colt was an American inventor and industrialist. He was the founder of Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company , and is widely credited with popularizing the revolver. Colt's innovative contributions to the weapons industry have been described by arms historian James E...
- United States Department of AgricultureUnited States Department of AgricultureThe United States Department of Agriculture is the United States federal executive department responsible for developing and executing U.S. federal government policy on farming, agriculture, and food...
- Oliver EllsworthOliver EllsworthOliver Ellsworth was an American lawyer and politician, a revolutionary against British rule, a drafter of the United States Constitution, and the third Chief Justice of the United States. While at the Federal Convention, Ellsworth moved to strike the word National from the motion made by Edmund...
- William W. EllsworthWilliam W. EllsworthWilliam Wolcott Ellsworth was a Yale-educated attorney who served as the 30th 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...
- Lafayette, IndianaLafayette, IndianaLafayette is a city in and the county seat of Tippecanoe County, Indiana, United States, northwest of Indianapolis. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 67,140. West Lafayette, on the other side of the Wabash River, is home to Purdue University, which has a large impact on...