The New International Encyclopædia/Ellis, George Edward

ELLIS, George Edward (1814-94). An American historian and editor, he was born in Boston, was educated at Harvard College and Divinity School, graduating at the latter in 1836; spent several years in study and travel in Europe, and from 1840 to 1869, when he resigned, was pastor of the Harvard Unitarian Church, Charlestown, Mass. From 1857 to 1863 he was professor of systematic theology in the Harvard Divinity School. In 1864, 1871, and 1879 he was a Lowell Institute lecturer, and for a number of years was editor of the Christian Register, and later of the Christian Examiner. He was an overseer of Harvard College in 1850-54, and in 1887 was elected president of the Massachusetts Historical Society. He published lives of John Mason (1844), Anne Hutchinson (1845), and William Penn (1847); Half Century of the Unitarian Controversy (1857); The Aims and Purposes of the Founders of Massachusetts and Their Treatment of Intruders and Dissentients (1869); Memoirs of Jared Sparks (1869); and History of the Battle of Bunker Hill (1875). He wrote chapters for the Memorial History of Boston (1881); for Winsor's Narrative and Critical History of America (1886); and several articles for the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.