Revolutionary legacy: The Ely family in Connecticut & Pennsylvania

11/7/2025

By Anne Ely Wain
With America’s 250th Birthday just months away, family historians are rallying to tell the
stories of the men and women who fought for our independence. Revolutionary War roots run deep for Susquehanna County residents descended from veterans who relocated here in search of land and new beginnings. My branch of Elys from Brooklyn Township is proud to honor our patriot ancestor Gurdon Ely I (1760-1845) of Lyme, Connecticut, and the generations that followed him.
Early immigrant Richard Ely (1610-1684) was granted vast tracts of marshy land along the Connecticut River by the provincial Connecticut governor and Mohegan sachem Joshua Uncas. The land where he and sons kept livestock and harvested salt hay was eventually sold and resold over time, but the Ely surname persists with place names like Ely Meadow and Ely’s Ferry Road, and in branches of the family who never left Lyme.
Richard Ely’s 4th great grandson Gurdon I served seven tours of duty during the American Revolution. He helped construct Forts Trumbull and Griswold, patrolled at Black Hall, marched to Stamford “in consequence of Captain Lee Lay’s company having been cut to pieces by the British horse,” and reconnoitered the Long Island sound between the Connecticut and Thames Rivers after the burning of New London by Benedict Arnold. Gurdon Ely Sr. remained in Lyme but his son Gurdon Ely II (1796-1873) migrated to Brooklyn Township, Pennsylvania in 1818, following uncles Gabriel (1756-1842) and Zelophehad Ely (1765-1822) who came in 1814.
A History of Brooklyn Penna. by E.A. Weston uses firsthand accounts of yet-living residents to identify early settlers and the locations of their homes, farms, and businesses. It describes “the toils, privations and pleasures…babies rocked in sap-troughs dug from divided logs of wood…horseback rides to the New England Fatherland and back, the adventures among panthers, bears and wolves…”
Gurdon Jr. and son Ammi (1824-1914) established a farm at Ely Lake (aka South Pond)— the glacially formed kettle pond Weston calls “that picturesque sheet of water on the Wm Morrison warrantee.” They stocked it with pickerel, bass and eels at the turn of the century, dammed the outlet for a carding mill, and began the practice of harvesting ice in winter. The waters are literally infused with seven generations of Ely DNA.
Weston’s chapter on Trades, Occupations, and Professions reported that in 1889 farming was still Brooklyn Township’s main class of work, but was plagued with “exceedingly small profits.” Ammi Ely eventually traded in farming for storekeeping and post master duty in town. A shopping basket from that store remains in the family’s possession, and some of his 4th and 5th great grandchildren are carrying on family farming to this day. In the 21st century, Elys are preserving and sharing over two centuries of family farm and lake life by studying history books, newspaper archives, and Historical Society records, as well as private family photos, scrapbooks and letters.
Personal accounts from those who came of age in the Great Depression tell of shenanigans and shivarees, tragic accidents, blizzards and ice storms, run-ins between Nash coupes and ornery bulls, fish tales and hunting yarns, joyrides and “canoe dates.”
They also memorialize the beginnings of the Ely connection to Camp Archbad. Luther Samuel Ely (1863-1942) and his brother Edgar Ely (1970-1956) are the Elys that transferred generous acreage at the lake in 1927 for ten dollars to the then Scranton Pocono Girl Scout Council, allowing fledgling Camp Archbald to expand and thrive. Luther is remembered as a kindly and distinguished man who “always had time to visit with family, always had good advice to give, and always set a good example.”
His son Luther S. Ely II (1907-1998) left a wonderful memoir of naval service during World
War II aboard the USS Ordronaux (“the Lucky O”,) a destroyer that saw 13 transatlantic convoy crossings and action in the invasion of Sicily. On shore leave in the winter of 1944, he unwittingly boarded a through train from New York City to Buffalo. At 3 a.m., with a blizzard raging and no stop at the Kingsley station, Luther convinced the engineers to let him jump out into a snowbank. His plan worked, and the tired sailor then walked to a nearby farm knowing that “Clifton Oakley would be up milking at 4.” Mr. Oakley drove him to the lake cottage where they “built a fire in the kitchen stove, had some wine, and talked until daylight.” The family has photos of Luther in his dapper Navy overcoat and hat, trundling groceries to the cottages on a sled.
Photos also document the five generations of Elys that found companionship, summer employment, and even true love at the Girl Scout camp across the lake. Wallace Frank Ely (1913-1941) married counselor and unit leader Kay Weist. Ely brothers and cousins drove and serviced vehicles (including a Model T pickup truck), built docks, did repairs and all manner of handiwork. Jerald Edgar Ely (1920-2013) fondly recalled “filling the scouts’ ice house every day with ice cut from the lake…on Sundays they made ice cream in a 32 quart hand-crank freezer.”
Four generations of Ely women attended Camp Archbald as Girl Scouts, from the 1940s until the present day. They did laundry for the camp and formed close bonds with staff and counselors. There are fond memories of TAPs wafting across the lake at sunset, the amplified sounds of happy splashing and singing, and of course the big dinner bell.
Over three decades cottage dwellers at the lake welcomed scores of scientists and researchers from 20 universities and 13 private, nonprofit, or governmental institutions including the US Forest Service and NOAA. Their studies of sediment layers have provided a valuable archive of Holocene earth history, and data from core samples have helped us learn about climate, forest, and fire history in the eastern United States.
While Connecticut Revolutionary War patriot Gurdon Ely may never have laid eyes on the lake that bears his family name, hundreds of his descendants have enjoyed the blessings of its peaceful, pristine waters and forested shores for 207 years. We pray these blessings will be kept intact for future generations.
Anne Ely Wain is the 4th great granddaughter of Gurdon Ely I and a member of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution.