My great-great-great grandmother, Sarah Jane Farmer (daughter of John Farmer and Frances Seaton of Hampshire County, Virginia/W. Virginia) was the second wife of David Ellis. They married October 2, 1828 in Hampshire County, Virginia. David's first wife, Nancy Hedrick, died in 1823 after bearing six children. Sarah was about twenty-three years younger than David; most likely, he needed someone with a lot of energy to help him manage his motherless children. David and Sarah added nine known children to the family grouping: Susan Frances Ellis; Samuel George Ellis; Alice Catherine Ellis; Ellis Ebenezer Ellis; Townsend Thomas Ellis; Hiram Lee Ellis; Sarah Caroline Ellis; and Henry Clay Ellis. The older children were born in Hampshire County, but some of the younger children -- including my great-great grandmother Sarah Caroline -- were born in Allegany County, Maryland. The family moved from the Maryland mountains to Iowa in the later 1840's.
David Ellis, a millwright and farmer, was born in Frederick County, Virginia (now Hampshire County, West Virginia) on March 1, 1782. He was the son of Morris Ellis, Jr. and Susannah Williams, whose mother allegedly was a member of the notable Lee family of Virginia through her mother and cousin to Lighthorse Henry Lee and Robert E. Lee. Morris Ellis, Jr. was the son of Morris Ellis, Sr. and Sarah Coulston of Pennsylvania and Virginia. David was the great-grandson of Thomas Ellis and Jane Hugh of Merionethshire, Wales and Pennsylvania. It is through Thomas Ellis and Jane Hugh's ancestry that the Ellis line is descended from royalty (as is almost everybody with European roots).
He died in Fremont, Mahaska County, Iowa on October 2, 1852. Other than that he was the father of at least 15 children, not much is known about him except that he was a millwright and a farmer and didn't fear uprooting his family to move -- first a short move from Virginia to Maryland, then a long move to Iowa -- for what might present better opportunities for himself and his children.
