Joseph Ellicott was one of three Quaker

Religious Society of Friends

The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...

 brothers from Bucks County, Pennsylvania

Bucks County, Pennsylvania

- Industry and commerce :The boroughs of Bristol and Morrisville were prominent industrial centers along the Northeast Corridor during World War II. Suburban development accelerated in Lower Bucks in the 1950s with the opening of Levittown, Pennsylvania, the second such "Levittown" designed by...

 who purchased land on the Patapsco River

Patapsco River

The Patapsco River is a river in central Maryland which flows into Chesapeake Bay. The river's tidal portion forms the harbor for the city of Baltimore...

 and set up a new milling business there. John, Andrew, and Joseph founded Ellicott's Mills in 1772, which became one of the largest milling and manufacturing towns in the East.

The Ellicott brothers helped revolutionize farming in the area by persuading farmers to plant wheat

Wheat

Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...

 instead of tobacco

Tobacco

Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...

 and also by introducing fertilizer

Fertilizer

Fertilizer is any organic or inorganic material of natural or synthetic origin that is added to a soil to supply one or more plant nutrients essential to the growth of plants. A recent assessment found that about 40 to 60% of crop yields are attributable to commercial fertilizer use...

 to revitalize depleted soil. Charles Carroll

Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Charles Carroll of Carrollton was a wealthy Maryland planter and an early advocate of independence from Great Britain. He served as a delegate to the Continental Congress and later as United States Senator for Maryland...

, a signer of the Declaration of Independence

Declaration of independence

A declaration of independence is an assertion of the independence of an aspiring state or states. Such places are usually declared from part or all of the territory of another nation or failed nation, or are breakaway territories from within the larger state...

, was an early influential convert from tobacco to wheat.

Joseph Ellicott was the father of the surveyors Andrew Ellicott and Joseph Ellicott.