Capt. Benjamin Ellis, 1st and 3rd Regiments, New Hampshire Continental Line
Benjamin Ellis was born April 13, 1755 in Kenne, New Hampshire. He was the son of Joseph and Lydia (Metcalf) Ellis.
Benjamin enlisted on April 21, 1775 in a company of Keene men that formed to go to Boston after hearing of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The men elected Isaac Wyman as their Captain. Later, Jeremiah Stiles, who had initially been elected as Lieutenant of the Company, succeeded Wyman as Captain prior to the Battle of Bunker Hill. Benjamin was appointed Corporal in this company which was a constituent company of John Stark’s 1st NH regiment. He fought in the Battle of Bunker hill in this capacity. Later, his company would be transferred to Colonel Sargent’s Regiment (known eventually as the 16th Continental Regiment and later the 8th Regiment, Massachusetts Continental Line). Corporal Ellis’s term of service concluded and he was discharged. In early 1776 he enlisted in the New Hampshire line and was stationed at Mount Independence.
On November 8, 1776 Benjamin Ellis was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the 3rd Regiment, New Hampshire Continental Line.
During the Continental Army’s encampment at Valley Forge, Dudley Leavitt Chase is listed in Captain William Ellis’s company of the Third Regiment, New Hampshire Continental Line. He is further marked as “Present/On Command” from December 1777-June 1778. Second Lieutenant Benjamin Ellis was further promoted to First Lieutenant on May 1, 1778 and Captain on July 5, 1780.
When the New Hampshire Line was reorganized effective January 1, 1781, the 3rd New Hampshire was disbanded. As such, Captain Benjamin Ellis was transferred to the 1st New Hampshire and placed in command of the newly created 9th Company. He continued in the 1st New Hampshire during the further consolidations of the New Hampshire Line and served to June 3, 1783.
Benjamins Ellis married Mary Baker of Topsfield, Massachusetts in Keene on August 26, 1785. Later, they moved to Northumberland, NH where he applied for a pension in 1818. He died November 29, 1831.
Sources: Francis B. Heitman, Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army, (Baltimore, 1914), 215; Frederic Kidder, History of the First New Hampshire Regiment in the War of the Revolution (Albany, 1868), 81, 85, 164; Pension of Captain Benjamin Ellis; The State of New Hampshire, State Papers, Volume XVI, (Manchester, N.H., 1887); Selected Wartime Service Records of Captain Benjamin Ellis.
