American school teacher, mycologist and general plant collector. Born on a farm near Potsdam, New York, Job Ellis spent much of his youth while not at school working the land, before he was employed as a teacher at Stockholm, New York, at the age of 16. Later attending the Union College at Schenectady he graduated with a BA in 1851 and from then onward worked as a classics teacher in numerous schools in the United States.
It was in Germantown, Pennsylvania, that he first took an interest in plant collecting and began to amass an extensive phanerogamic herbarium. Later teaching in Albany and Poughkeepsie Ellis continued his collecting and even attempted to move south with his sister in 1855, although relations between the north and south were not good at that time and he soon gave up and returned to Potsdam. His botanical work was aided when, in 1856, he married Arvilla J. Bacon who had a strong interest in plant life. In 1857 he found a copy of H.W. Ravenel's Fungi Caroliniani Exsiccati, the only reference guide for mycologists in North America, and from this time onwards dedicated himself to the collection of fungal specimens. Ellis joined the navy and fought during the American Civil War (1864-1865), afterwards moving to Newfield, New Jersey, where he remained for the rest of his life. From 1878 Ellis prepared and distributed extensive exsiccatae with B.M. Everhart and the two published several works together, the most significant being The North American Pyrenomycetes of 1892. Many of his specimens were sent to Dr M.C. Cooke who identified and published them in the journal Grevillea. In 1870 Ellis sold his phanerogamic plant collection of about 1,000 specimens to St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., and over 8,000 exsiccatae collections from BM were transferred to K under the terms of the Morton Agreement after 1960.
Sources:
F.W. Anderson, 1890, "A biographical sketch of J.B. Ellis", Botanical Gazette, 15(11): 299-304
J.W. Harshberger, 1899, Botanists of Philadelphia: 259-272
H.B. Humphrey, 1961, The Makers of North American Botany: 79-80.
