CT Old House, your online source for your old home, period design, antiques and folk art.

Connecticut Old House, old homes, period design, antiques and folk art. Home of the most complete directory of suppliers and services for owners of old homes in Connecticut.

OLIVER ELLSWORTH: STATE ATTORNEY FOR HARTFORD COUNTY AND A MEMBER OF THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS REPRESENTING CONNECTICUT

by Anya Laurence

Oliver Ellsworth

A native of Windsor, Connecticut, where he was born on April 29, 1745, Ellsworth received his first two years of higher education at Yale, followed by two years at the College of New Jersey (later Princeton) where he studied theology and received his A.B. Deciding to change to law, after four more years of study he was admitted to the bar in 1771.

Born in Windsor, Connecticut, on April 29, 1745, Ellsworth married Abigail Wolcott in 1772, and started his law practice. Although the practice was slow at first, Ellsworth soon became know as able and industrious and in 1777 he became Connecticut’s state attorney for Hartford County. He was active in Connecticut’s efforts during the Revolution, and as a member of the Committee of the Pay Table, was one of five men who allocated Connecticut's war expenditures. By 1779 he was a member of the council of safety, which controlled all military action of the state, directed by the Governor.

Ellsworth represented Connecticut at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787 and was active in all facets of the conference. Debating on the Great Compromise, Ellsworth agreed with the Articles of Confederation, which stated that the basis of representation remain by state. He made an amendment in a resolution to change the word ‘national’ to ‘United States.’ The American government from that time on has been designated as the United States

Oliver and Abigail Wolcott Ellsworth



	Oliver Ellsworth Homestead, Windsor, Connecticut

Oliver Ellsworth was part of the Committee of Five that prepared the first draft of the Constitution. Favoring the three-fifths compromise on the enumeration, Ellsworth was opposed to complete abolition of the foreign slave trade. He left the convention without signing the final document, but promoted its adoption upon his return to Connecticut, and to promote its ratification he wrote the Letters of a Landholder.

Serving as one of Connecticut’s first two senators between 1789 and 1796, he chaired the committee that put forward the bill organizing the federal judiciary, helped frame the measure that admitted North Carolina to the Union, and served on the committee that considered Alexander Hamilton’s plan for funding the national debt and for incorporating the Bank of the United States, among many other things.

Appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1796, he also served as commissioner to France for two years. After he returned to America for the last time in 1801, he retired from political life and lived quietly in Windsor, where he died on November 26, 1807 and was buried in the cemetery of the First Church in his hometown.