Rev. Jonathan Ellis

  General Notes:

THE REV. JONATHAN4 ELLIS (John,3 Lt. Mordecai,2 Lt. John1), born 1 May 1717, baptized 30 June 1717, died in Little Compton, R. I., testate, 7 Sept. 1785, gravestone reads "in his 68th year" (THE REGISTER, vol. 115, p. 266, October 1961).

He married in Sandwich, 11 Jan. 1738/9, PATIENCE BLACKWELL, born there 4 Oct. 1717, died there 14 April 1795 "in her 78th yr" (ibid.; see also vol. 117, p. 297, October 1963).

He had a Stoughton scholarship and took his A.B. degree at Harvard with the Class of 1737, never troubling to take a second degree (Sibley's Harvard Graduates, ed. by Clifford K. Shipton (1958), vol. 10, p. 163-5). He was admitted to full communion in the Sandwich church, 28 Aug. 1737. In June 1738 his cousin, Samuel3 Ellis, and his wife and other residents of that part of Plymouth called Monument Ponds petitioned the authorities of the Plymouth First Church to permit them to establish a second church there. Although, as Shipton points out, it was usual for a town's first church to oppose incorporation of a rival congregation, the Rev. Nathaniel Leonard seems to have encouraged the move in this case, as he found Jonathan Ellis congenial; and so Jonathan Ellis was chosen by the congregation and ordained 8 Nov. 1738 on the same day that the Monument Ponds Church was formed into a new parish. Three weeks later the Rev. Jonathan Ellis published his intention of marriage, 29 Nov. 1738, to Patience Blackwell of Sandwich (Plymouth Vital Records in Mayflower Descend-ant, vol. 18, p. 30). She was admitted to full communion in the Sandwich church, 1 April 1739.

Upon his marriage he bought a homestead farm of some six acres at Monument Ponds near the church, 6 March 1738/9 (PLCD, vol. 33, p. 105). But before long, Shipton tells us, he was caught up in the Great Awakening, a controversial theological development which both he and the Rev. Mr. Leonard supported. He signed without reservation the Declaration of the Provincial Clergy, 7 July 1743, favoring Revivals, and on 25 Sept. 1745 put his name to the New Lights Testimony. By two deeds, dated 19 April 1744, he added ten acres to his property (ibid., vol. 36, p. 154). On 10 Oct. 1748 he bought from his cousin, Benjamin3 Ellis (No. 13 above) an additional 60-acre tract (ibid., vol. 39, p. 215). His father's will, dated 30 July 1748, gives "To rny son Jonathan Ellis, beside what I have bestowed upon him in his learning--40s."

Meanwhile his congregation was a poor one and his salary evidently was not sufficient for the needs of his rapidly growing family. Shipton says that the churches of both Abington and Little Compton awaited his dismissal. He decided upon the move to Little Compton and we find that "31 Oct. 1749 The Second Church in [Plymouth], having sent letters to this [the First] Church to advise and assist them relating to the Dismission of their Reverend & Beloved Pastor, Mr. Jonathan Ellis, because of the Divisions among them and their inability to support him any longer ... after prayer and hearing the case of the [ecclesiastical] Council, advised the Rev. Mr. Ellis to ask a Dismission and the Church to grant it. On 26 Nov. 1749 a letter was received from the church at Little Compton desiring assistance ... at the installation of the Rev. Jonathan Ellis the 29th of this month" (1749--Plymouth Church Records, op. cit., p. 298). The births of only the first three of the children of the Rev. Jonathan and Patience Ellis are of record in Plymouth (Town Records, vol. 1, p. 241). The first four or five children probably were baptized by their father in the Monument Ponds Church, the records of which we have not found. The mother retained her membership in the Sandwich church until 11 March 1749/50 when it was "voted to dismiss Patience Ellis (once Blackwell) ye wife of ye Revd. Mr. Jonth Ellis & recommend her to ye Chh. of Christ in Littlecompton (or Second)" (THE REGISTER, vol. 111, p. 29, January 1957).

By deed, dated 10 Oct. 1752, "Jonathan Ellis of Little Compton, ... County of Newport, ... Colony of Rhode Island, Clerk," sold for £102. paid by "Benjamin Ryder of Plymouth ... gentleman, a parcel of land with ye dwelling house & other buildings ... bounded Westerly by the way that goes by the Beaver dam ... northerly by Nathaniell Bartlett ... etc. ... 11 acres; also a wood and swamp lot which I bought of Joseph Silvester" (PLCD, vol. 42, p. 4). During the unlucky year 1755 when the French won several victories over the British Colonial forces, Ellis preached a fiery sermon to the soldiers, citled Justice of the Present War (published in Newport, 1755). In the codicil, dated 9 Nov. 1757, to his will the father, John3 Ellis, gives this son a share of wearing apparel. Shipton notes that Ellis subscribed to six copies of Morton's New England Memorial; but observes that the Little Compton church declined under Ellis' preaching, having in a 36-year period only 26 new members so that by 1785, far short of being a thriving church, it was incorporated by the State of Rhode Island as the United Congregational Society. Shipton says also that "frequent mention of Ellis in the diaries of his contemporaries show that he was accepted as a useful member of the clerical community."

The will, proved 4 Oct. 1785, of "Jonathan Ellis, Clerk," gives "to my son Jonathan Ellis, Junr., ... all my wearing apparell, watch and shoe buckles. To my wife Patience the improvement of all my Real Estate and Personal Estate. I early pledged a solumn friendship and am conscious of an acting tenderness & kindness to her without bitterness or contempt and wherever she has failed towards me I daily and now finally forgive her all, praying that her remaining days may be quite in ye peace of God. To my daughters, Lucy, Patience, Mary, Deborah and Bathsheba ... I have had so much comfort in them ... To the son Jonathan of my daugh-ter Mary ... $10. To Jonathan the son of my daughter Patience ... All ye remainder, after my wife's decease to be equally divided between sd daughters, Lucy, Mary, Patience, Sarah and Bathsheba." Witnesses: Gideon Taylor, Mary [X] Taylor, Mary Taylor (Little Compton Wills, Book 2. p. 116-from copy in the Society's Library, Boston).
In the absence of evidence that the Rev. Mr. Ellis had a dry sense of humor, the sympathy of the compilers goes out to the wife, who, judging from the wording of the will, must have had, as well as been named, Patience.
[Lt. John & Elizabeth (Freeman) Ellis of Sandwich, Mass by Lydia B. (Phinney) Brownson, of Duxbury, Mass & Maclean W. Mclean, of Pittsburg, PA]

Jonathan married Patience Blackwell, daughter of Michael Blackwell and Bathsheba Bourne, on 11 Jan 1738/39 in Sandwich, Barnstable, MA ^5,16,37.^,65 (Patience Blackwell was born on 4 Oct 1717 in Sandwich, Barnstable, MA ^5,16,65 and died on 14 Apr 1795 in Little Compton, Newport, RI ¹⁶.)