Letter from Mary Ash 2003-02-14

Growing up surrounded by Robert's grandchildren and great grandchildren should have brought me closer to the truth; however, they were as misinformed as many of us.  My Uncle Lee was Robert's grandson.  He was a very learned man and successful businessman.  He planned the celebration at Olive Branch Cemetery for Robert's reburial. Most of my relatives attended.  Uncle Lee was mistaken in his information for Robert's tombstone.  I have personally checked the letters at the National Archive and none came from Lee Ellis for Robert's tombstone.  I have no idea how the wrong Robert Ellis was listed on the tombstone..  I am happy to tell you that Senator Warner helped me to replace the erroneous tombstone with a new correct one.  It rests there today above Robert Ellis's grave in Olive Branch Cemetery..

My grandmother stated often that her great grandfather Robert was born in Ireland.  She was wrong. But I am convinced that, rather than Robert, it was his father or grandfather who was born in Ireland.  Down through the ages in the telling and retelling of the story, just like the children's game of "Gossip", Robert became the one born in Ireland.  The best Virginia genealogists agree with me.  Robert said he was born in Buckingham County, Virginia. How did his father get there?  Down the Great Wagon Road from Philadelphia? Or did he land on the East Coast near some of the Virginia plantations?

I believe without a doubt that his father or grandfather came to Virginia as an indentured servant.  Robert says he "went with his father to Abbeville, SC when he was a small boy".  It would hold then, that when his father worked off his indenture and collected his suit of clothes and a few dollars, he left for South Carolina where there was a huge number of Ellises near Abbeville, SC.  I have been there.  Robert's pension said when he was in the Militia he was wounded a few miles from his home near Reids Mill, SC. I had to find Reids Mill.

Reids Mill was not on any of the ancient maps at the Archives nor any library.  Then I found out why. In desperation I located a noted historian and author in South Carolina and we drove there to interview him.  He said "The reason you can't find Reids Mill on any maps is because the owners changed so often. I'll tell you where it was located.  But" he said "do not walk up the waterway too far because there are many snakes in that deserted territory."  Less than a mile from Reids Mill is a large cemetery called "Ellis Cemetery".

Why did Robert and his father go there when he was a small boy?  Obviously he must have known people in Abbeville.  There were many Ellis families there.  One Robert Ellis is documented on a passenger list.  It is not my Robert.  But many came during the time South Carolina offered free land, free tools and free passage to Irish Protestants (NO CATHOLICS).  They came in droves.  So many, in fact, that South Carolina terminated the offer in only a few years.

In several old books of Greene County, Indiana early patriots, Robert is listed as being born in Ireland.  There has to be a connection somewhere. It is a puzzle I may never solve.