Ely, Edmund Franklin, 1809-1882

Edmund Franklin Ely was born in Wilbraham Massachusetts on August 3, 1809. He was a choir director, Fourth Presbyterian Church, Albany, New York, and began his ministerial studies (1828). He was appointed by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in 1832 and left New York, arriving in La Pointe, Wisconsin the following year. From that time until 1849 he served Ojibwe missions in Fond du Lac, Pokegama, and Sandy Lake, Minnesota. His diaries indicate that he was in almost constant movement among these places and took several trips to La Pointe. In 1849 he left the mission field and moved to St. Paul, though he also lived in Superior, Wisconsin, and Oneota (Duluth), Minnesota from 1849-1862. In 1873 he moved to California and died there in 1882.

He was married to Catherine Bissell Goulais in La Pointe.

From the guide to the Edmund F. Ely and family papers., 1833-1931., (Minnesota Historical Society)