Alexander Ellice (1743 - 1805)

Born 23 May 1743 in Auchterless (Kirktown of Auchterless), Scotland

Ancestors

Husband of Ann (Russell) Ellice — married 1 Jun 1781 in St Benet Fink, London, England

Descendants

Died 28 Sep 1805 at age 62 in Great Pulteney Street, Bath, Somerset, England

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Biography

Alexander Ellice was a United Empire Loyalist.
UEL Status:Proven
Date: 1775

Alexander Ellice (1743-1805) was the eldest son of William Ellice of Knockleith & his wife Mary Simpson of Gartly.

He was a partner of Phyn, Ellice and Company at Schenectady, New York, U.S.A..

Alexander died aged 62 on the 28th September 1805 at his residence on Great Pulteney Street, Bath, Somerset, England & was buried 5 October in Bath Abbey.

"Inglis Ellice were shown as owners of Union estate on St Lucia 1815-1828; Alexander Ellice had been the eponymous partner until his death in 1805."^[1]

Noted "merchant in Upper Canada who acted as agent for the securing of compensation for the Loyalists."^[2]

Excerpt from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography profile for Alexander Ellice (1743-1805):

• Alexander Ellice attended Marischal College (University of Aberdeen), and was admitted to the Scottish bar. Apparently foreseeing little opportunity for success in the legal profession or in his homeland, in 1765 he led his four brothers to Schenectady, N.Y. Early in 1766, with an investment of £714 11s. 10d., he entered into partnership with James Phyn, brother of his brother-in-law and possibly a cousin, and with John Duncan, to engage in the fur trade and general merchandising in upstate New York and the lower Great Lakes area.
• The firm, known as Phyn, Ellice and Company following Duncan’s retirement in 1767, prospered and expanded; in 1768 Ellice’s brother Robert, and in 1769 the Detroit fur trader John Porteous, were taken into the partnership. To broaden its financial base, the company took on contracts to supply provisions for military posts and presents used by the Indian Department, and it moved into the grain trade. Ellice invested his profits shrewdly in mortgages and land in prosperous northern New York, including a valuable mill-site, acquired from Sir William Johnson, at Little Falls. Thanks to his solid connections, in January 1770 Ellice was granted a royal patent for 40,000 acres near Cooperstown.
• Until 1768 Phyn, Ellice and Company disposed of its furs at New York, but in that year, finding the New York market glutted, it sold in London. It began ordering goods directly from Britain, at first from William and Alexander Forsyth, Glasgow friends of the Phyn and Ellice families.

Excerpt from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography profile for his younger brother Robert Ellice:

• [They were sons] of a prosperous miller, who prior to his death in 1756 had provided his children with some education and who may have left them a modest estate. In 1765 the five Ellice brothers emigrated from the Aberdeenshire family homestead to America, their mother and two sisters remaining behind. The brothers made their way to Schenectady, New York, a small farming and commercial centre on the frontier. Alexander, the eldest, formed a partnership with John Duncan and James Phyn, two local merchants, in 1766. Duncan had been active in the fur trade around the Mohawk valley, Niagara (near Youngstown, N.Y.), and Detroit; his new partners aggressively expanded the business into grain and general merchandise. Following Duncan’s retirement in 1767 the firm, now known as Phyn, Ellice and Company, moved into larger quarters.

Research Notes

Alexander was reported as wed to both Ann Russell and to a daughter of George Phyn, laird of Corse of Monelly (and sister to Jean/Jane Phyn (1732-1811) who married William Forsyth, business partner of the Ellice brothers).

Besides their business dealings, there was significant intermarriage among Scottish immigrants of the Phyn, Ellice, Forsyth, Richardson and Grant families in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Based on their individual profiles on the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, many of these families had known each other back in Scotland in the early 1700s.

Sources

1. ↑ "Union St Lucia" estate records; Legacies of British Slavery database
2. ↑ https://www.americanantiquarian.org/proceedings/44498038.pdf A Bibliography of Loyalist Source Material in Canada; JO-ANN FELLOWS, Editor, KATHRYN CALDER, Researcher; PROGRAM FOR LOYALIST STUDIES AND PUBLICATIONS; 1972; p. 176.

• Dictionary of Canadian Biography

• LDS baptism record for Alexander Elice

• A United Empire Loyalists’ Bibliography of the American Revolution and the Post War Settlement of the Loyalists, Compiled by Lieutenant Colonel William A. Smy, OMM, CD, UE, "Part 13: Loyalist Personalities, Family Histories, and Genealogies"; UEL Bibliography of the American Revolution and Postwar Settlement; 2022.

• "Loyalists and the fur trade: the impact of the American revolution on western Canadian history; 2003 United Empire Loyalists' Association.