MR. JOHN ROBERT ELLIS. ELLEN JONES. UTICA ONEIDA COUNTY, NEW YORK.
John Ellis was born in Penbrynffynnon in the parish of Llanllyfni in the county of Caernarfonshire, North Wales in 1839 and was baptised at St Rhedyw Parish Church, Llanllyfni on the 8th of December of that year. His parents were Robert Ellis "Y Clochydd" (sexton) 1805-1872, a notable Caernarfonshire poet, also known as Awen Llyfni and his mother, Catherine Williams 1810-1883.He was one of eight children of the respected Penbrynffynnon (or Penbrynmoch) family, all of whom remained in Wales apart from the only sister, Anne, who emigrated to Australia.
He married Elizabeth Jones in St Peris, Nant Peris in 1864 and has 2 children who died in infancy, both buried at St Rhedyw, and both named Robert in 1866 and1868. He emigrated to the USA, with his wife and daughter, Catherine Anne (b.1867) in about 1869 to Hampton, New York where William was born in 1870 and later John J. and Emrys Clark Ellis in Poultney in 1876 and 1880.
His wife predeceased him in 1885 and he remarried a Mary Hughes in about 1904. His lengthy Obituary appears in Y Drych (The Mirror), a Utica Welsh newspaper describes him as a humorous individual well known in the Poultney area for providing lodgings to new immigrant Welsh quarrymen in Slate Valley.