Note: One of the pioneers of Elk City, Kansas is Bullet Hole Ellis. Mr. Ellis lived in Chautauqua County but considered himself part of Elk City. Elk City sits on the county line of Elk and Chautauqua Counties. I do not find any info in the Elk City Enterprise. I did however find several articles about Bullet Hole Ellis in the Howard Current Citizen (Howard County) paper. In the early days before Chautauqua County and Elk County existed it was called Howard County. Abraham Ellis lived quite a while with the bullet hole but it caused him problems later in life. Abraham Ellis buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, Elk City, Kansas. I could not find an obit for Mr Ellis nor for his wife Elizabeth. Also Note: Where the bullet and bone fragments are remains a mystery, nobody seems to be able to locate them. Also note the newspaper has date of death as 1885 but I find articles that are dated 1914 when he was in town.
The Citizen (Howard, Kansas) dated August 2, 1916
The Man with a Hole in his Forehead
A prominent character in the early day affairs of Howard County was Abraham Ellis, “the man with a hole in his forehead”. Ellis was a big, fine looking man and would be noticeable anywhere even though he had not born the mark of Quantrill. He came here from Miami county and was always in attendance at conventions and important gatherings. He was a man of high moral character and was always free to back his opinions with arguments when necessary. Ellis served one or two terms as county superintendent and was a live wire in educational affairs. He was a kindly old gentleman and until the wound in his head caused the darkening of his mind he was a general favorite.
The following, written by one of his daughters, tells more of the life of this early Kansan than we can
Abraham Ellis was a native of Ohio. He came to Kansas in September 1857 then a territory and settled in Miami County. During the Border Ruffian War of 1859-65 he was successfully county commissioner and superintendent of public instruction under territorial government. The following year while in Ohio on a mission of duty he was elected to serve his chosen state in its first legislature. He had joined the Republican party at its organization and remained with it during the rest of his life. He sold his farm in Miami county and in the fall of 1870 moved to Chautauqua County (then Howard county) with the view of engaging in fruit culture. He was an enthusiastic horticulturist and his name appears many times in Kansas reports as a champion of advanced ideas in this direction.
Everything tending to the up building of the state and county of his adoption found in him a hearty and intelligent champion. A clipping from the Kansas papers says: “No man in Kansas has done more for horticulture than Abraham Ellis has done.” In his travels over the state and county his benevolent disposition shining out through his kindly expressions won him universal love and “Uncle Abe” was known far and wide. Children along the road recognizing him by the deep bullet hole in the forehead would shout a “How-do-you-do Uncle Abe.”
Seeing in the liquor traffic a possible source of woe to the bright faced boys and girls whom he loved, he was always a steadfast supporter of the prohibition laws of Kansas. In the years of 73-74 he filled the office of county superintendent of public instruction of Howard County, now Elk and Chautauqua Counties. He was a hearty co-worker for a higher and better education and for the betterment of his home and his country, but on account of failing health he had to retire from public life. On February 2, 1875 his wife died leaving him with two daughters, at home, five daughters being married at that time. His wife had shared his hardships and the privation of building up a home on the frontier, he borne the anxieties occasioned by the presence of danger, and had faithfully nursed and attended him during the long fight for life after he was wounded. He was wounded by Quantrill in his first raid in Kansas March 1862. After the death of his wife his daughters now took charge of his home and it was by them that the darkened life was watched at its close as the callus growth which formed in the wound pressed hard against the brain, causing the loss of mental power, obliging him to give up the life of public service for which he was so well fitted.
He died on the 14th of March, 1885, at his home near Elk City, Kansas in Chautauqua county, and was buried at Elk City beside his wife. In his long and varied career no act of his ever cast reproach upon his early profession nor upon the Great Master he so humbly and faithfully followed. His life was noble and useful and he rests with the loving Redeemer in whom he trusted, and now beside his grave a marker of white marble bearing acrostic of his name reading downward spells his own name “Abraham Ellis”
Almighty God, who did exist
Before the hills were made
Remember me when I deceased
And in my coffin laid.
Help me to cross life’s stormy sea,
And death’s cold flood destroy,
May I from pain and sorrow flee,
Eternal peace and joy
Like some bright star that reigns above
Let me in glory shine,
I then will sing redeeming love
So let this lot be mine
found in A standard History of Kansas and Kansans, written and compiled by William E. Connelly, Secretary of the Kansas State Historical Society. Copyright 1918
Abraham Ellis, for many years a resident of Miami County, was popularly known as “Bullet-Hole Ellis” from the fact that for twenty-three years he carried a deep wound, almost in the center of his forehead, in which had originally been buried a bullet fired by the noted raider, William C. Quantrill. His recovery was one of the most remarkable in surgical annals, and the ball which inflicted the wound, as well as the twenty-seven pieces of frontal bone which were picked from his skull at the time, are among the remarkable exhibits displayed in the Army and Navy Medical Museum at Washington, D. C.
Mr. Ellis was born in Green County, Ohio, April 22, 1815 and for many years in his earlier manhood was a successful teacher, but his health compelled him to cling to the soil. In September, 1857, he left Ohio and located in Miami County, six miles from the Missouri line. He was therefore in the very hot-bed of the Border warfare, and his strong free-soil sentiments and capacity for organization made him a personal friend, a co-worker and a trusted lieutenant of John Brown. In October, 1858, he was elected a member of the Territorial Legislature and in the following December a representative of the lower house of the First State Legislature.
At that time Mr. Ellis was county commissioner and superintendent of public instruction, and in 1860 he gave Quantrill a certificate to teach school at Stanton. Soon afterward he was commissioned by his neighbors to go East for aid. When the Civil war broke out he enlisted Lane’s Brigade and served as quartermaster. On March 7, 1862, while on his way from Fort Scott to Fort Leavenworth, he stopped over night at Aubrey with a man named Treacle. Aubrey was three miles from the Missouri line and two miles north of the south line of Johnson County. At daybreak the landlord aroused all in the house with the cry “The bushwhackers are coming” Treacle and another man named Whitaker were shot to pieces, and a man named Tuttle was killed by a ball in the eye. At the commencement of the trouble Ellis sprang out of bed, placed a fur cap on his head and looked out of the window. Quantrill took a shot at him, and the ball passed through the sash and the cap into the skull. The leader of the raiders then came into the house and, recognizing Ellis,expressed great sorrow for what he had done, saying: “You are not the kind of man I was looking for; I’m d-d sorry.” He saved the life of Ellis from his followers as well as Ellis team and $50 worth of groceries, but did not get around in time to save the $250.00 which Ellis had handed over to the bushwhackers. Quantrill’s ball had crashed through both plates of the forehead and lodged against the inner lining, where it lay buried for seventy hours. When the shattered bones and the bullet were extracted, the brain could be seen throbbing with each pulsation of the heart. But Mr. Ellis recovered in five months, the wound healed, and in September, 1863, he was commissioned first lieutenant in a Fifteenth Kansas company, and served as such until February, 1865. He moved from Miami to Chautauqua County in 1870, and gave much attention to horticulture. He died at Elk Falls, Kansas March 14, 1885.
Howard Courant (Howard, Kansas) June 13, 1918
Abe Ellis of Chautauqua county, was in Howard last Saturday with a load of fine ripe peaches. He presented the Currant-Ledger with a pail full of the finest. (Mr. Ellis was quite a character). He had been county superintendent before the division. He was a pioneer Kansan, and was at Lawrence at the time of the Quantrell raid, and was shot through the forehead by one of the raiders and left for dead. But he recovered and the bullet hole in his forehead was always plainly visible, showing distinctly in a photograph which I still have of “Old Abe”.
An article written in the Kansas City Star on Friday October 31, 1997 by David Goldstein, Washington Correspondent
This is in part:
A Kansas abolitionist during the Civil War. Ellis was shot in the head in 1862. And though fragmentary, the evidence as indisputable: He lived and to the end of his days, walked around with a hole in his forehead.
But the lingering puzzle as far as Ellis is concerned is just what happened to the evidence, the shards of skull and bullet which embroider the legend.
Research at the Kansas State Historical Society show that a surgeon removed the bullet, which had tucked itself in the lining of Ellis brain. Ellis, who would outlive his assailant by 20 years, later the bullet and his skull fragments were said to be sent to Washington to the Army and Navy Museum. To this day it is a mystery on what happened. The possible museums The Army and Navy museum, Army Medical Museum, Civil War Medical Museum, Army Medical Museum,
I checked with the National Archives in Washington but was told they had no bullet or bone fragments. They had a lot of requests over the years and had nothing they could find.