ELLIS, F. M. Sr., Beeville Bee, Friday, 18 Mar 1904:

Obituary - Death of F. M. Ellis, Sr.:
Mr. F. M. Ellis, Sr. a resident of the county since 1878 and for many years proprietor of the 
hotel now known as the Lindell, died at the residence of his son, F. M. Ellis, Jr., Tuesday 
afternoon in the seventy-fourth year of his age. 

The deceased was a native of North Carolina and came to Texas in 1856, settling first in 
San Saba and later in St. Mary's, when that place was at ifs zenith as port of entry for 
southwest Texas. He conducted a hotel there until 1878, when he removed to Beeville 
continuing its management until 1890 since which time he has followed ranching and 
farming until a year or two ago. He was incapacitated from active life by ill health. Of a 
quiet and unassuming demeanor and scrupulously honest in all his dealings with his 
fellowmen, he enjoyed both the friendship and esteem of all that knew him.

The funeral of Mr. Ellis occurred on Wednesday afternoon, interment being in the old 
cemetery and attended by a large gathering. The obsequies were conducted by the 
Masonic fraternity, of which he had been an honorable member more than fifty years.



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MR. F. M. ELLIS, SR.:

The death of Mr. F. M. Ellis, Sr. that which occurred on the 15th instant., marked the 
passing of one of the notable landmarks of Beeville. Forty-eight of his seventy-three 
years had been spent as a citizen of Texas, twenty-six of which were identified with the 
history and growth of the county in which is his last resting-place.

Mr. Ellis was born in the town of New Bern, Craven County, North Carolina, on September 
17, 1830, while the state of which he was to become a citizen was yet a province of Mexico. 
When nine years of age he removed with his parents to Lowndes County, Mississippi, where 
he grew to manhood and on February 23, 1850 was married to Miss Martha W. Melton, who 
six years later came with him to Texas and settled in San Saba, then an extreme frontier point 
in the state. In 1859, they moved to St. Mary's, then a prosperous place of 1500 or more 
inhabitants and the chief port of entry for the vast region south of San Antonio.  With the 
decline of that place as a commercial center, Mr. Ellis moved to Beeville in 1878 and erected 
the hotel, which for many years bore his name and which he was proprietor. It was here in 
1887 the wife of his youth died. Two years later he was united in marriage to Miss. Sarah O. 
Dunn, an estimable young lady of Coryell County, by whose death in 1901, he was again 
bereaved.

During the Civil war Mr. Ellis fortunes were cast with the Confederacy, and the state of his 
adoption having served though out the war as a member of Captain Hobby's company in the 
Eighth Texas Infantry, among the last troops to be mustered out of service. Among his effects 
is still preserved his discharge in which his commander commends him for gallant service, 
and as being "faithful to the flag to the last."

In the matter of admission, the deceased was perhaps the oldest member of the Masonic 
fraternity in the community having been raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason in 
1853, fifty-one years ago as a diploma from Churchill Lodge, No. 159, of the grand jurisdiction 
of Mississippi attests.
By Mr. Ellis' first marriage nine children were born, four of whom survive, namely Mrs. H. S. 
Baxter of Bay City, S. J. Ellis of Matagorda and Mrs. Paul Baxter and Frank M. Ellis of Beeville. 
By his last marriage there was but one issue, Miss Zella Ellis who makes her home with her 
sister in Bay City.