Representative Elijah Sells View All Years

ELIJAH SELLS was born in Franklin county, Ohio, February 14, 1814, and died at Salt Lake City, March·13, 1897. He was descended from revo1utionary stock, his grandfather on the paternal side having been killed at Yorktown, and his great-grandfather in “Mad Anthony Wayne’s” charge at Stony Point. Mr. Sells came to Iowa in 1841, and settled in Muscatine county where he engaged in the manufacture of pottery. He was elected to the first State Legislature in 1846 and again in 1852. At the first Republican State Convention in 1856 he was nominated for Secretary of State. He was elected and served in this office six years. In a subsequent State Convention he came within a few votes of the nomination for Governor, and, possibly, would have received the nomination, but for the fact that he withdrew his name, prematurely, as his friends believed. He afterwards went into the Navy as paymaster. After the war, settled at Salt Lake City, and sometime later was appointed Secretary of the Territory by President Harrison. This last office he held four years. During the time Mr. Sells resided in Iowa he was one of our foremost citizens—“one of the most influential men the State has ever had in public life.” He was “a man of wide and varied knowledge, genial and cordial in his manners, blessed with ‘troops of friends,’ a shrewd far-seeing politician, possessing business habits and executive ability of a high order.” THE ANNALS for October, 1896. contained two articles relating to Mr. Sells, one of which was from the pen of his life-long friend, Mr. John M. Davis of Des Moines. To these articles the reader is referred for further details of the life-work of Mr. Sells.