Griffith Ogden Ellis (1869–1948) was born to a prominent family of Urbana, Ohio. From 1908 to 1939, he was president of Sprague Publishing Company, publisher of popular magazine The American Boy and other national periodicals.
Career
editEllis was the second publisher and president after founder William Cyrus Sprague (1850–1922), his brother-in-law. Ellis' wife Ellen Winifred Scripps (1873–1965) – a daughter of William Armiger Scripps (1838–1914) and Ambrosia Clarinda Antisdel (1947–1894) – was a niece of publisher E. W. Scripps.[1]
Ellis was a co-founder of the Boy Scouts of America.[2] He also served as president of Detroit-based real-estate holding company William A. Scripps Co.
Ellis was also a freemason and his interest in it, along with that of fellow early Scouters Daniel Carter Beard, William D. Boyce, and Ernest Thompson Seton, probably contributed to the similar formulas and structure of Scouting and its later honor fraternity, the Order of the Arrow.[3]
References
edit- ^ Scripps, James E. (1903). A Genealogical History of the Scripps Family and Its Various Alliances (privately printed: copy 22 of 120), R.L. Polk Printing Co., Ltd., p. 23
- ^ Compendium of the History and Biography of the City of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan. Chicago: Henry Taylor & Co. 1909. pp. 399–400. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
- ^ Denslow, William (1957). 10,000 Famous Freemasons from A to J: Part One. Kessinger Publishing, for the Missouri Lodge of Research. p. 19. ISBN 1417975792. Retrieved 25 March 2013.