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North Carolina's Governors
John Willis Ellis (1820-1861) led North Carolina out of the Union and into the Confederacy. Born in eastern Rowan County (later Davidson County), he attended Randolph Macon College for one year before entering the University of North Carolina. He then studied law under Richmond M. Pearson and set up practice in Salisbury. A Democrat, Ellis was elected a member of the House of Commons in 1844. In 1848, Dorothea L. Dix selected Ellis as liaison to champion her call for an insane asylum. In 1858 he won his party's nomination for governor and handily defeated his opponent, Duncan McRae. As governor, Ellis pushed for faster movement of railroad freights, better plank roads and turnpikes, improvements in education, and completion of river navigation projects. Hanging over his accomplishments, however, was the growing cloud of secession and sectional crisis. Up for election in 1860, Ellis defeated his Whig opponent, John Pool. In his inaugural address in January 1861, Ellis continued to urge moderation on the sectional issue. By early March events had convinced Ellis that the state would soon have no choice but to join the Confederacy. When President Lincoln called for troops in April to put down the insurrection, the governor placed the state's sympathies with the South. After answering the president "You can get no troops from North Carolina," Ellis ordered state troops to seize all federal forts and the Fayetteville arsenal. All that was left was to make secession official at the May 20 convention. Years of riding the circuit as a judge had weakened John Ellis's health. In a futile effort at recovery, he journeyed to Red Sulphur Springs, Virginia and died there on July 7, 1861, at age forty-one. His first burial took place in the family cemetery in Davidson County, but his remains later were moved to the Old English Cemetery in Salisbury.
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