The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-04-05
HENRY ". ELLSWORTH;

The appointment of Senator Rufus Magee
as minister to Sweden and Norway may re-
call to old residents the appointment of anoth-
er Hoosier to the same position, when it was
called a "charge d'affaires-ship" was paid
less, and held of less consideration than now,
but at the same time made even more desra-
BILE by the much smaller number of desirable
foreign appointments at the command of the
administration at that time. Henry W. Ellis
worth was the man. He was the son Of Henry
L. Ellsworth, for many years Commissioner
of Patents, and the man whose bequest to
Yale College was the origin Of legal
contention of national notoriety, which
was ended by compromise that gave up to
the contesting heirs fair share of the large
estate of the deeedent. With his portion
Henry, the ex-Swedish minister, bought the
property on North Meridian street, above the
Blind Asylum, where Mr.. Tinsley, one of the
city's earliest architects, built the large frame
residence with a portico, subsequently occu-.
pied by the late Judge Newcomb and the late
John Fishback. Here he rapidly wasted his
hard-won patrimony, and died with nothing.
For some years he and the late Sims Colley,
of whom the city papers have been telling
amusing stories, were partners In the
law practice, and Mr. Ellsworth was the
defending counsel in one of the most noted
criminal trials of the county, that of the negro
cook of the Ray House, near the Madison
(now Jeffersonville) depot, who was convicted
for poisoning one or more of the boarders with
arsenic. 1t was in this case that Senator Ben
Harrison won his first professional laurels as
nominal assistant, but really as principal
prosecutor. He succeeded in breaking down
u plausible defense, and sent the culprit to the
penitentiary. somewhere about the year 1855.
The exact date is not remembered by
the Journals informant. Mr.. Harrison's
conduct of the case demonstrated
a measure Of ability that the long-headed
observers thought prophetic Of future en-
inence. Ellsworth was appointed to Sweden
and Norway by Polk, the reminiscent
thinks in 1845, and remained abroad till about
1850 He returned under cloud It was
rumored that he, like another bigger Demo
cratic minister from Indiana few years later,
Edward A. Hannegan at Berlin, had used his
official privileges to import dutiable goods
without paying duty. Nothing came of
either imputation officially, though they made
some considerable discussion of an unfavora.
BILE tendency in the papers. Mr.. Ellsworth
married here daughter of Nathaniel West,
the founder of the cotton and grist-mills near
Fall creek, on the canal in the northwest
part of the city, and one of the most enter
prising of our early industrial pioneers. 1t
by privateering against British commerce
during the war of 1912. He served one term
as senator from this county, some forty years
ago A good many readers of the Journal
may remember that it was Mr.. Ellsworth's
sister who brought to Professor Morse
the first information of the passage
of the bill making an appropriation for
his first telegraph line from Washington to
Baltimore and that in grateful recognition of
her interest and aid he gave her the privilege
of sending the first message ever sent by mag
netic telegraph; "What hath God wrought
Henry Ellsworth was man Of considerable
abilities and attainments, who frittered away
their opportunities ina reasonably protracted
life by unsteadiness of purpose and an incli-
nation to dissipation that gradually absorbed
his time and emasculated his intellect. He
will be remembered by some of the older mem
bers of the Indianapolis bar as one of the best
story tellers they ever saw, and he was as
fond of the diversion as they were. His account
of the ceremonious reception, on landing
given to his colored courier, who was taken
by the unsophisticated Scandinavians to be
ga celebrated chasseur engaged by His Excel
lency, the American Minister in Paris" was
one of the most amusing efforts of prolific
humor the reminiscent ever heard, and would
make figure among the best works Of Bur
dette or Mark Twain to-day.
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MINOR MENTION.