March 1906] Obituary —Job Bicknell Eilis 
43 
hart, with original illustrations by F. W. Anderson; published by 
Ellis and Everhart, Newfield, New Jersey, 1892. 
It is interesting to note the beginning of a correspondence 
with the mycologist Ravenel of South Carolina, which perhaps 
influenced him to work along the line he thereafter so conspicu¬ 
ously followed. It is said by one who wrote a sketch of his life 
a few years ago that Mr. Ellis saw by chance a notice of “Fungi 
Caroliniani exsiccati,” the first thing of the kind ever issued in 
America. He at once wrote to the author of that work, and the 
correspondence was permanent — interrupted only by Raveneks 
death. The first letter was written in 1857 and doubtless this 
friendship was one of the incentives to Mr. Ellis’ persistent and 
fruitful labors in the mycological field. 
Allusion has just been made to the sketch of Mr. Ellis’ life, 
prepared by Mr. Anderson a few years ago and published in the 
Botanical Gazette. The latter spent much time at the home of 
Mr. Ellis while making the drawings for the North American 
Pyrenomycetes. Mr. Anderson was a most promising and en¬ 
thusiastic mycologist taken away unfortunately when just be¬ 
ginning a career of great usefulness, and I consider it a tribute 
to him as well as to Mr. Ellis that I can select from his sketch of 
Mr. Ellis the salient points in the several following paragraphs: 
J. B. Ellis was born in Potsdam, N. Y., Jan. 21, 1829. In¬ 
dustrious over his books when not at work on his father’s farm 
he was prepared at the age of sixteen to teach a winter-school,, 
for which service he received ten dollars a month and “boarded 
around.” This doubtless well-earned salary was paid partly in 
cash (five dollars) and partly in grain, the last of the grain being 
turned over to him, says Mr. Anderson, just twenty years after¬ 
ward. In June, 1851, Mr. Ellis graduated from Union College. 
While a student here he paid some attention to botany. He taught 
at various schools, but no positon seemed to be very permanent. 
His interest in plants continued unabated. In 1853, while a 
classical teacher at Bartlett’s Boarding School in Poughkeepsie 
during two years, he collected plants on Saturdays and, said he, 
“on Sunday, too, if he could steal away, for Mr. Bartlett was 
very pious.” In the fall of 1856 he became principal of the Can¬ 
ton Academy and in 1863 went into one of the public schools of 
Pottsdam village. During the war of the rebellion he was in the 
United States Navy. At the close of the war he settled at New¬ 
field, New Jersey, where he resided until his death. 
It was not, however, until 1878 that Mr. Ellis began devot¬ 
ing his whole time to the study of Fungi. With characteristic 
modesty he refrained from attending scientific meetings, so that 
practically all of the botanists and many amateurs, though they 
know his name as of an old friend, never met him personally. Mr. 
Anderson says that with considerable quiet humor he tells how 
that when he was teaching at Mr. Bartlett’s School, he deter- 
