Matthias Ellis

Of Middleborough. From his father in May 1759 he received 48 acres in the Twenty-six Men’s Purchase, 4 acres in the Five Men’s Purchase, “formerly sold by Samuel Samson unto Mr Samuel Prince and sold by said Prince unto Mr Thomas Hutchinson and Mr Daniel Oliver and of them sold to me,” and half an eight-acre meadow lot in the Lower Meadow; on 29 May 1759 he bought from John Williams of Lebanon, Connecticut, “all that the farm or Homestead that my honored father Joseph Williams Late of Middleborough Died Seized of,” 65 acres, for £140. In 1758 and 1763 “Matthias Ellis & Lucy Ellis his wife” sold shares of her family’s Bennett land with her sister and brother.

The Middleborough clerk entered several of their children’s births with the day of the week: “Cornelius Ellis the Son of Matthias Ellis & by Lucy his wife was born Wednesday October ye 18th 1749”; Ebenezer “Thursday January ye 15th 1752”; Betty “Sunday may ye 12th 1754”; Gamaliel “Tusday September ye 27th 1757”; Daniel “Tuesday September ye 17th 1760” (FamilySearch 3:1:3QHK-P31H-S52D).

“Ensign Matthias Ellis” in a 1770 estate account. Probably the “ELLES, MATTHIAS, Middleborough. Private, Capt. Nehemiah Allen’s co., Col. Theophilus Cotton’s regt.; service, 31 days, on a secret expedition to Rhode Island in Sept. and Oct., 1777,” when he would have been 57. Excused from serving as constable in 1783 (the research does not give the source for the 1770 and 1783 entries).

Six of his sons probably served in the Revolution (Mass. Soldiers and Sailors 5; the service records are documented, but that each man is his son is the research’s inference): Joseph, a corporal of the Middleborough minute company on the Lexington alarm; George, at Bristol in 1776 and Newport in 1777; Cornelius, at Rhode Island in 1777; Ebenezer and Gamaliel, who enlisted together on 20 June 1775 in Capt. Josiah King’s company; and Daniel, at Camp Hull in 1776 aged 15-16, and in the guard at Boston in 1778 while Burgoyne’s surrendered army was held at Cambridge.

Died by March 1790, “Mathias Ellis late of Middleborough … Gentleman deceased,” his estate represented insolvent. His son Joseph administered it, and his widow Lucy’s dower was set off in April 1791.

Not the Matthias Ellis, labourer, of Middleborough (died by 1782; son Samuel aged 16 in 1782), nor Matthias Ellis Jr. of Sandwich (b. 1739, m. Rachel Tupper 1759).

Open questions

• Where was he born? His birth date is from Brownson and McLean via Pane-Joyce; no record of it has been seen. The colonial tree marks the date as documented; the page keeps it compiled until the record is found.
• Is the 1777 Rhode Island private this Matthias? He would have been 57.