While I was researching descendants of Samuel Fuller who settled in Maine after the Revolutionary War, I stumbled across Charles Alton Ellis, who is my fourth cousin twice removed. He was born in Parkman, Piscataquis County, in 1876. He was the son of David Brainard Ellis and Eliza Wharff Lombard.

He attended Wesleyan University (Middletown,…

After Freeman Ellis and Isaac Fuller completed their 12 days of Minuteman duty at Marshfield, they went home to Plympton and enlisted in the regular army for irregular warfare.

“Irregular warfare” is Richard Frothingham’s description of what took place during the Siege of Boston in the spring, autumn, and winter of 1775. Freeman and Isaac served in Colonel…

My two 4 x great grandfathers from Plympton, Massachusetts were members of Theophilus Cotton’s Minute Regiment. Freeman Ellis and Isaac Fuller “marched on the alarm of April 19, 1775 to [drum roll please] Marshfield; service 12 days…” 

They didn’t march toward Lexington or Concord, or to Boston, but to Marshfield, a distance of 14 miles from Plympton (according to Google Maps). The history books have told us that all the action was in Boston, where the British regulars…

I have two great-great-great-great grandfathers who were members of the Massachusetts Colonial Militia in Plympton, Massachusetts. They are Freeman Ellis (1745 – 1802) and Isaac Fuller (1751 – 1833). Both of them settled their families in Oxford County, Maine in the 1790s. Freeman Ellis died in Hartford, Maine in 1802. Isaac Fuller died in Livermore, Maine in 1833. The son of…