COL. ADRIAN C. ELLIS
Col. A. C. Ellis, the son of Dr. Robert Binns Ellis, was born July 12,
1840, in Richmond, Ray County, Missouri. Died March 19, 1912 in Salt
Lake City. He was a member of the law firm of Dickson Ellis, Ellis
& Schulder. The death of a man like Col. A. C. Ellis is a great
loss in any community. He represented the very best that is in poor
human nature. He was of the very highest type of American citizenship.
He was universally trained at a time when the higher educational
institutions still cling to the severe classical standard and the
student went forth prepared at a glance to run a word back to its
original root and at the same time from his training to judge
intuitively all that was loftiest in language.
He was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of Ohio, January
19, 1853; Supreme Court of Iowa, April 15, 1854; Supreme Court,
Territory of Utah, January 16, 1855, and later to the Supreme Court of
the United States. After graduating from University of Missouri he went
to the University of Louisville, Law Department. In those days the
training there was not only a grounding in the science of the law, but
it extended to the law's application to the infinite forms of business,
and to the rights of man and the obligations and powers and
prerogatives of governments. This training was manifest in Col. Ellis
every day of his life. True, he joined in a rebellion to rend the Union
in twain, but behind him was the furious public opinion of all his
friends and relatives, the training of a lifetime—the uprising of
millions, half of his countrymen, all his personal friends. In 1861 he
enlisted in a regiment of Missouri Infantry, under Col. Ben Rives and
General Sterling Price. None of us can tell what we would have done
under the same impelling causes, and the sincerity of his convictions
was made clear by the fact that he went out and offered his life for
them, and fought until the cause was lost in his State and he was a
prisoner.
When paroled, he turned his face towards the West and settled in Carson
City, Nevada, and began the practice of law. From the first day he
appeared in court, those who heard him—and they were shrewd
judges—realized that a masterful scholar and profound lawyer had
appeared among them. He was never discomfited in court. The law of any
case was clear to him at a glance, and his presentation of a case was
most beautiful. There was no guess work. It was the application of an
exact science to a problem, and there was never any faltering, in
presenting in language every word of which was the right word to give
to his argument light and power and charm. From the first day, too, it
was clear that the sorrows and disappointments he had suffered were
never to be given further expression in his life. Never had a sectional
word never any repining over lost hopes but the building up of a high
name. He succeeded, too. He built up a splendid practice at a bar where
some of the most royal minds on the coast were daily competitors; over
and over the political party to which he belonged tried with passionate
earnestness to heap all the honors in their gift upon him. And he
repaid them. He more than once canvassed the State, and the speeches he
delivered were as sharp and incisive as were ever delivered in that
State, and at the same time there was a tone accompanying them which
even now lingers in the memories of the men who listened to them with a
refrain like that of a stately anthem.
When the great bonanza went into borasco Col. Ellis moved to San
Francisco, and there for twelve years maintained his place in the
forefront of the foremost lawyers of the coast. In 1895 moved to Salt
Lake City. Here he has left to his stalwart partners the active work of
the firm, but to the last his brain was clear; his nature genial and
high as ever; and the comfort left the loved ones is that as husband,
father and citizen his life was rounded full, and he has gone to his
final rest with every duty fulfilled, and with a long life's work fully
completed. Col. Ellis was married in 1860 to Lucie Reeves Cobb. A. C.
Ellis Jr., Henry R. Ellis, Dr. L. R. Ellis, and Carrie A. Ellis are the
four living children.
[Source: History of the bench
and bar of Utah; By Interstate Press Association; Publ. 1913;
Transcribed and submitted by Andrea Stawski Pack.]
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