Henry Leavitt Ellsworth
Henry Leavitt Ellsworth ( born November 10, 1791 in Windsor, Hartford County, Connecticut, † December 27 1858 in New Haven, Connecticut) was an American jurist. He was the first director of the U.S. Patent Office, President of the Aetna insurance company and later founders of the Department of Agriculture of the United States.
Life
Ellsworth was born in Windsor, the son of Oliver Ellsworth and Abigail Wolcott. He graduated to study at Yale University and then law at the University of Litchfield.
After his studies, he settled first in Windsor and later in Hartford, where he lived ten years. On June 22, 1813, he married Nancy Allen Goodrich ( daughter of Congressman, judge and former mayor of New Haven Elizur Goodrich), with whom he had three children. His second wife married Ellsworth Marietta Mariana Bartlett and later Catherine Smith. He received his middle name in memory of the family of his grandmother.
1811 Ellensworth took his first trip to the western United States. At first he rode in the Connecticut Western Reserve where his father Oliver Ellsworth had purchased 170 sq km land. About this trip Ellensworth wrote a short trip report titled "A Journey to New Connecticut in 1811 ." It was an arduous journey, during which Ellsworth was able to enjoy exhilarating views, but had to andererseit also deal with rioters. The hardships of the journey was relieved by a meeting with Margaret Dwight. Ellsworth wrote this: "Today I met with my good friend Margaret Dwight With her I spent a few pleasant hours.. " Dwight himself also wrote a travelogue entitled "A Journey to Ohio in 1810 ."
Twenty years later, in 1832, Ellsworth again traveled to the West, this time as an agent of the government for Indian tribes in Arkansas and Oklahoma. President Andrew Jackson appointed him as commissioner "to explore the country to survey the boundaries, to bring peace to the Indians and, more generally, law and order to produce ". Ellsworth traveled to Fort Gibson. On the way he stopped in Cincinnati and Louisville and then travel on to St. Louis in Missouri. There he met the explorer William Clark and the chief of the Sauk Indians Black Hawk. His mission was difficult. It should be between the interests of different Indian tribes who were displaced by white settlers in ever-diminishing reserves and give them the Chouteau family, a powerful fur trader dynasty .. Ellsworth was on this journey by the author Washington Irving, the British mountaineer, author and later Governor of Victoria, Charles La Trobe and Albert of Pourtàles accompanied.
1835 Ellsworth was elected mayor of Hartford. However, he exercised the office for only a month until he was appointed the first director of the U.S. Patent Office. He held until 1845 this office. On his first day of work at the patent office Ellsworth had to realize that the submitted application to the inventions should be in the room of his office stacked. Also, no list was passed over the patentee up to this point, but this soon changed under Ellsworth.
As head of the Patent Office Ellsworth made a decision that would influence the future of the entire State of Connecticut. The young Samuel Colt was looking for investors to build his newly invented revolver. He aroused the interest of Ellsworth, the Colt 1836 patent number 138 exhibited. With this, it was the inventor of possible raise $ 200,000. With this capital Colt formed the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company, a forerunner of today's Colt Defense Company ..
Ellsworth was technically very interested and ahead of its time. He became aware, for example, invented by Samuel Morse telegraph and sought the Congress to $ 30,000 after to test the possibilities of using the apparatus ..
After his time in the Patent Office, he settled in Lafayette department store, where he worked as a broker. 1857 however, he returned to Connecticut.
On December 27, 1858 Ellsworth died in New Haven, Connecticut. After his death, most of his recordings of the Yale University Library was passed. There they are kept to this day as a separate collection.