James William Ellsworth was born in Hudson, Ohio on October 13, 1849, the son of Edgar Birge Ellsworth and Mary Holden Dawes Ellsworth. His father ran a general store in Hudson at the southeast corner of Division and East Main Streets and young James helped his father out in the business.
After attending the Preparatory Department of Western Reserve College, James, in 1869, decided to leave Hudson to seek his fortune. The 19-year-old Ellsworth went to Cleveland, where he began working for a wholesale pharmaceutical company. The following year, he moved to Chicago, joining the coal firm of Ames and Company. Within four years, Ellsworth worked himself up to a partner in the business, and soon became a major coal dealer and distributor in his own right.
On November 4, 1874, Ellsworth married Eva Frances Butler in Chicago. On May 12, 1880, their first child was born, a son named Lincoln. A daughter Clare was born on November 5, 1885. Eva, however, died on the couple’s 14th wedding anniversary, November 4, 1888. Ellsworth later remarried in 1895 to a New York widow named Julia M. Clark Fincke.
Ellsworth’s financial interests continued to diversify. At one point, he was president of the Ohio Coal Company, the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Dock Company, the Union National Bank of Chicago, among others. He also served as director of the Postal Telegraph Cable Company and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
Among his early philanthropic activities was his promotional support for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. He helped keep the fair going both organizationally and financially.
As Ellsworth’s fortunes increased, so did his material possessions. In addition to his Chicago home, he also accumulated residences around the world.
In 1890, he took one of the Ellsworth family’s old farmhouses and converted it into a grand country estate, which he named “Evamere” after his late wife. He owned a London townhouse and another town home, a brownstone in Manhattan.
In was in New York that he met his second wife, a widow named Julia M. Clark Fincke. They were married in 1895.
In 1907 Ellsworth purchased a residence, the Villa Palmieri on the outskirts of Florence, Italy. Among this ancient villa’s former residents were the author Boccaccio and the ill-fated Marie Antoinette. The Ellsworths completely restored the villa, and spent a large portion of time there. Ellsworth also bought a villa next door, the Villa Aurora, to use for guests.
The story goes that Ellsworth set his sights on a table from a castle in Switzerland. The seller, however, would only agree to sell the table if Ellsworth purchased the entire castle. In 1911, he did just that–acquiring the historic Schloss Lenzburg along with its contents, including an armada chest.
Ellsworth soon became not only a collector of homes but also of fine objects, including rare books, coins, and china. He owned a Gutenberg Bible and was one of the first Americans to buy a Rembrandt and bring it into the United States.
He never forgot Hudson. In 1907, he proposed a series of initiatives to revive the once-thriving town. Hudson, through a series of misfortunes throughout the end of the 20th century, had fallen into disrepair. The streets were unpaved, electricity was nonexistent, and the town lacked basic water and sewer systems. Its infrastructure was crumbling, and the population was steadily declining.
Ellsworth’s proposals to help Hudson were sweeping. He provided funding to pave the streets, ordered elm trees planted throughout town, created power and water plants, helped property owners to renovate their properties, and encouraged thrift by helping to reinforce the state of banking in town.
Meanwhile, Ellsworth had other goals. One was to return higher education to Hudson, something that had been lacking since Western Reserve College moved to Cleveland in 1882 and Western Reserve Academy went out of business in 1903. In 1910, for instance, he tried to get a state teacher’s college in Hudson. At the last minute, that college was granted to Kent, and today is Kent State University. Without a college, Ellsworth then settled on a preparatory school, and succeeded in gaining control of the old Western Reserve College campus in 1912. By 1916, he had succeeded in putting the current Western Reserve Academy in operation on the old site.
Another attempt to help Hudson occurred in 1910, when Ellsworth collaborated with Caroline Baldwin Babcock to charter the Hudson Library and Historical Society in that year. He served as one of the original trustees of the library, and provided it with its first home, an old cheese factory which Ellsworth remodeled into the “Club House.” Today, that building is Hayden Hall of Western Reserve Academy, at the northwest corner of College and Aurora Streets.
One of his final gifts to Hudson was the construction of the Clocktower, an original design, which Ellsworth initially intended to be used as a fountain. Built in 1912, it has been one of the most enduring signs of Ellsworth’s memory in Hudson.
In their later years, James and Julia Ellsworth spent most of their time in Italy. On June 2, 1925 James W. Ellsworth died at the Villa Palmieri.
James W. Ellsworth’s body was brought back to his hometown of Hudson and interred at Markillie Cemetery. A significant portion of his estate went to Western Reserve Academy, forming the core of that school’s endowment.
