History of Bucks
County, Pa Volume 3 by William H. Davis
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WILLIAM L. ELY WILLIAM L. ELY, farmer and limeburner, of Solebury township, New Hope postoffice, was born in New Hope, March 4, 1863, and is a son of Daniel and Sarah (Cox) Ely, both deceased. His emigrant ancestor Joshua Ely was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1649, a son of Rev. George Ely and Sarah Heath, of Mansfield, who married Mary Senior and settled in Durham, Nottinghamshire. In 1684 Joshua Ely emigrater to America and settled at Trenton, New Jersey, where he purchased of his brother-in-law, Mahlon Stacy, 400 acres lying wholly in what is now the city of Trenton. His second son George married Jane Pettit, and their son Joshua married Elizabeth Bell in 1730, and removed to Bucks county in 1738 upon 500 acres of land, two-thirds of which still belongs to his descendants. He lived and died where the subject of this sketch now lives, part of the present residence having been erected by him about 1750. Joshua and Elizabth (Bell) Ely had seven children: Joshua; George; John; Hugh: Sarah married William Kitchin; Hannah, married James Dubree; and Jane married Jonathan Balderston. John, born May 28, 1738, inherited the homestead portion of the tract from his father. He married first Sarah Simcock, and Asher Ely, grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was the only son. Asher was born on the old homestead, July 11, 1768, and at the death of his father in 1811 the farm descended to him. He married Eleanor Holcomb in 1791 and had nine children. Daniel Ely, father of William L., was born October 27, 1796. At the death of his father, August 12, 1855, the hereditary acres became vested in him and his maiden sister Sarah, and at the death of the latter the whole title vested in Daniel. He married late in life Sarah Cox, and at his death, March 14, 1886, devised the farm to his only son William L. Ely. Daniel Ely was a miller by trade, and for many years operated the old mill still standing on the farm. Lime has been quarried and burnt on the premises for a century or more, and the subject of this sketch on arriving at manhood devoted his attention to this branch of the business in connection with farming, the lime kilns and quarry having been previously rented out for many years. The mill was erected in 1833, and is still operated for the use of the farm. William L. Ely was married March 23, 1898, to Nettie Wilson, daughter of James and Mary (Holcomb) Wilson, of Hunterdon county, New Jersey. They have no children. In politics Mr. Ely is a Republican. Text taken from page 426 Davis, William W. H., A. M. History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania [New York-Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1905] Volume III Transcribed June 2003 as part of the Bucks Co., Pa., Early Family Project, Published July 2003 on the Bucks County, Pa., USGenWeb |