Rev. Jacob F. Ellis, First Sgt., Co.B
part of a volume entitled History of the Ninety - Third Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry: From Organization To Muster Out --Statistics Compiled by Aaron Dunbar Sergeant, Company " B", Revised and Edited by Harvey M. Trimble, Adjutant
Submitted by Jeffrey MacAdam, to whom every reader should be grateful.
James W. Lee, Captain, Co.B
JAMES WESLEY LEE, was born November 4th, 1835, at Double Creek, Maryland. Moved to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1838. He was educated in the public schools of Baltimore, Newton Academy and Maryland University, in Maryland, and at Garrett Biblical Institute of the Northwestern University, at Evanston, Illinois. He engaged in commercial business from 1849 until 1854, when he reentered school, and graduated in 1857. He taught in Newton Academy until July, 1860, when he removed to Illinois and settled near Lincoln. He moved to Chicago in 1861, where he was tutor in the Rev. Dr. O. H. Tiffany's family, and at the same time attended the Garrett Biblical Institute at Evanston, Illinois. He entered the Rock River Conference of the M. E. Church and was appointed to Dover, Illinois, in October, 1861.
He enlisted August 11th, 1862. He was elected Second Lieutenant of Company B of the Ninety-Third Illinois Volunteer Infantry August 11, 1862, and was commissioned as such with rank from October 13th, 1862, and was mustered into service October 13th, 1862, at Chicago, Illinois. He was wounded in the left arm May 22, 1863, at Vicksburg, Mississippi. He was promoted First Lieutenant and commissioned as such with rank from July 31st, 1863, and mustered into service as such November 29, 1863. He was promoted Captain and commissioned as such with rank from March, 1st, 1864, and mustered into service as such April 4, 1864. He served with his company and regiment until the close of the war, and was mustered out June 23rd, 1865, near Louisville, Kentucky, and was paid off and finally discharged, July 7th, 1865, at Chicago, Illinois.
After the close of the war, he reentered Garrett Biblical Institute, at Evanston, Illinois, in July, 1865. He was married to Miss Eliza Ann Emerson, at Dover, Illinois, on November 1st, 1865. They have one child.
He reentered the Rock River Conference of the M. E. Church and was appointed to Yorkville, Illinois, in October, 1866. He was transferred to the Georgia Conference of the M. E. Church and appointed to the First M. E. Church, Atlanta, Georgia, in October, 1868. He was presiding elder of the North Georgia District from 1868 until 1872. He was president of Clark University, Atlanta, Georgia, in 1872. He was president elder of the Atlanta District in 1974. He returned to Rock River Conference and was appointed to Palatine, Illinois, in October, 1876; to Newark, Illinois, in 1877; to Mendota, Illinois, in 1879; took a supernumerary relation and went with a colony to Dakota in 1881; served the church at Mahomet, Illinois, until 1882, and was associate editor of the "Chicago Lever" and pastor of the Asbury Church, Chicago, Illinois, until 1885. He was appointed to Pullman, Illinois, in October, 1885; to Lanark, Illinois, in October, 1886; to Elizabeth, Illinois, in October, 1890; to Montrose, Chicago, in 1892; and to Ada Street M. E. Church, Chicago, Illinois, in October, 1895. His present home is at Mayfair, Chicago, Illinois.
Rev. Jacob F. Ellis, First Sgt., Co.B
JACOB F. ELLIS, was born in Fremont, Ohio, in October, 1842. When he was thirteen years old the family removed to Illinois. By industry and economy he worked himself into Wheaton College, Illinois, at the age of nineteen years. Though eager for education, he left college for the army in 1862, and served as shown in the roster of his company.
At the close of the war he went back to Wheaton College and graduated from that institution in 1869. In that year he was married to Miss Nettie Cowen of Wheaton, Illinois. She only survived about a year. After a year, spent as principal of the preparatory department of Wheaton College, he began a seminary course at Chicago and finished it at Oberlin, Ohio, in 1873. That year he was again married, to Miss Mary H. Hall, of Oberlin, and was that year ordained a minister at Toledo, Ohio. In 1874, he went as pastor to Forest Grove, Oregon, and thereafter spent seventeen years on the Pacific Coast. He was pastor at Seattle, Washington, and president of the Pacific University. As home missionary, pastor and educator, the chief inspiring spirit of a college, and the center of beneficent activities radiating over those young and expanding communities, he gave impulse, direction and vigor to all forms of religious work. The labor and toil, the energy and thought, the zeal and resolution, the patience and courage, that marked his work there can never be told.
In the fall of 1893, he went as pastor to the Congregational Church at Neligh, Nebraska, and was soon made president of Gates College, located there. Later he removed to Norfolk, Nebraska, where he was endeavoring to found an educational institution, when his health suddenly failed. He died June 28th, 1896, at Norridge, Conn., and was buried at Norfolk, Nebraska.
AARON DUNBAR, was born November 25th, 1842, near Newville, in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. His father's name was John Dunbar. His mother's maiden name was Maria Oiler, who departed this life when he was six years old. The family was of Scotch origin, and the subject of this sketch inherited very much of the sturdy character of that ancestry. He was an only son, and for four generations before him there was only one son in the Dunbar family. He removed from Pennsylvania with his father to Bureau County, Illinois, a few years before the war. He was educated in the common schools of Pennsylvania, and after coming to Illinois was a student for two years and a half, at the Dover Academy, before the war and one year after the war.
He enlisted as a private, for three years or during the war, was soon promoted to sergeant, and served to the end of the war, when he was mustered out with the company and regiment, as shown by the roster of the company. He was wounded in the charge at Vicksburg, Mississippi, May 22nd, 1863, which disabled him for a few weeks. But notwithstanding that, he was with the regiment in every battle and on every march in which it participated.
After the war he taught school during the winter months and engaged in farming during the summer seasons. On May 28th, 1868, he was married to Miss Emily Thompson, the only daughter of Dwight Thompson. His wife is one year younger than he. They have three daughters, viz.: Mary, Carrie and Pearl. After his marriage he settled down for life in the business of farming, and has been very prosperous in his business, having become the owner of a goodly quantity of fine and well improved land. He is one of the substantial men of Bureau County, highly respected by all who know him.
He was town collector of the town of Dover for the years 1869 and 1870. He was one of the commissioners of highways of that town from April, 1877, to April, 1883. He was the assessor of that town from April, 1883, to April, 1895, excepting one year. He was elected supervisor of that town in April, 1895, and reelected in April, 1897, and is now serving his second term in that office. A good soldier during the war, he has been a good citizen ever since. And the editor of this volume assumes the responsibility of saying that but for his untiring industry in the collection of statistics and information, and his persistent efforts in such behalf, this history of the Ninety-Third Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry would never have been published. His address is Dover, Illinois.
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Aaron Dunbar, Sgt., Co.B