.jpeg)
Albert Ellis (1835-1903)
Hattie L. Ellis (1854-1929)
Albert C. Ellis was born on October 6, 1835 in Dedham. His father was Rufus Ellis (1802-1858) and his mother was Hannah Guild Ellis (1805-1886). Hannah was the daughter of Joel Guild and the granddaughter of Major Aaron Guild. Albert was one of nine children.
A farmer like his father, Albert Ellis lived in the neighborhood of South Dedham colloquially referred to as the “Ellis section,” near the Ellis Station (northeast Norwood). In August, 1862, one month after Lincoln’s pleas for more volunteers to support the Union, Albert enlisted in Company I of the Thirty-fifth Massachusetts Regiment. Dubbed the “Second Dedham Company” because 65 of its officers and men were from the area, Company I was fully enrolled by mid-August and, with little time for training, was ordered to the front. By September 14, 1862, the Thirty-fifth was in action at the Battle of South Mountain. Three days later, they were at Antietam, one of the deadliest and most gruesome battles of the Civil War. As historian James McPherson wrote “the number of casualties suffered at Antietam was four times greater than the number of American casualties at the beaches of Normandy.” Thousands were either killed or died of their injuries; another fifteen thousand were wounded, many severely. September 17, 1862 was simply “the bloodiest single day in American history” and its horrors haunted many of its survivors for the rest of their lives. The battle ended the Confederate invasion of Maryland but also clearly marked the end of the innocent patriotic bravado that had drawn many like Albert Ellis to enlist. Ellis was mustered out on June 9, 1865. Twenty-four of his comrades had died (20 of battle wounds, 4 of disease) and a few dozen had been discharged early because of disability; only 45 of the original 101 mustered out together that June. They had served under the command of eight generals, including McClellan, Sherman, Meade, and Grant, traversed a good portion of the eastern United States, and had played a part in several of the war’s most significant battles. At last, Albert Ellis’s three arduous years of service had come to a close.
On September 11, 1868, Albert Ellis married Harriet Louisa Tuttle (1849-1929), known as Hattie. She was the only child of Levi and Louisa Fisher Tuttle. Albert and Hattie had two children, Herbert and Louis.
Albert Ellis remained a farmer, living in South Dedham, later Norwood, for 50 years. As a veteran of the war, he attended reunions of the 35th Regiment held in Boston in 1893 and 1902.
He died on January 28, 1903, of heart disease, at the age of 67, in Pembroke. He left his widow, Hattie, and his son, Louis. Herbert W. Ellis, who was born in 1869, predeceased his father in 1881.
