San Joaquin County
Biographies
WARREN BENJAMIN ELLENWOOD
WARREN BENJAMIN ELLENWOOD, a
rancher of Dent Township, was born in Clinton County, New York, June 1, 1842, a son of Benjamin and Pamelia (Ferris) Ellenwood, both
living in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in 1889. The father, born in Nova Scotia in 1814, came to the United States with his widowed mother in his youth. The mother is a
native of Essex or Clinton
County, New York; her father, William Ferris, also a native of that
State, was over ninety when he died in 1882. His wife, also a native of New York, was about eighty at her death. Grandfather Ellenwood
was a ship-owner of Halifax, who was murdered and robbed, and his murderer
executed about 1820.
The parents of W. B. Ellenwood moved to Wisconsin in 1857, where he was educated in the district
schools and worked on his father’s farm. He enlisted in the Tenth Wisconsin
Volunteer Infantry, August 14, 1861, and was discharged March 1, 1865. He was
taken prisoner at Chickamauga, September 21, 1863, and experienced the discomforts
of more than one rebel prison. He escaped once and was within a mile and a half
of Sherman’s lines at the time of his raid of Atlanta, but was retaken and returned to prison. He had
reached the grade of Second Lieutenant before his capture. His brother Sidney
was also taken prisoner, and died at Andersonville.
On being discharged, Mr. Ellenwood
returned to farming, and before the close of 1865 bought 240 acres in Minnesota. He raised but one crop there, and returned to Wisconsin in 1866. In September, 1867, he was married in New York State, to Miss
Matilda Miller, born in Steuben County, New York, February 4, 1839, a daughter
of Daniel and Emma (Corbett) Miller, both natives of that State, dying there
when over seventy years of age. Mr. Ellenwood returned to Wisconsin with his wife, and went to lumbering. In 1869 he sold his farm in Minnesota and set out for California by the Panama route, arriving in San Francisco May 30, same year, and proceeding to Stockton the next day. He engaged in farming, working for wages in Castoria Township for more than a year, and then rented a small place
on the Calaveras, near Waterloo, for one year, and in 1871 rented 1,800 acres on
shares, which he held three years. In 1874 he bought 320 acres, which ranch he
still occupies, situated about a mile west of Atlanta.
He raises wheat principally, but also breeds Percheron horses, owning an
imported stallion and mare of that serviceable breed. For some years he owned
and worked a threshing-machine, but that was superseded by the combined
harvester, and he has confined his attention to wheat-growing and raising
horses, of which he usually keeps from twenty-four to thirty. Mr. Ellenwood has
been a school trustee, and clerk of the board for some years.
Mr. and Mrs. Ellenwood have four living
children, and have lost two in childhood. The living are: Luella Emma, born
June 16, 1871; Jay Warren, born August 27, 1873 (both of whom are following a
course of study in the University of the Pacific); Dolly Elma, born January 4,
1875, and Charles, born August 22, 1876, both attending the local school near Atlanta.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County,
California, Pages 331-332. Lewis Pub.
Co. Chicago, Illinois 1890.
© 2009 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
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