then by voters. However, he resigned after less than six months because rampant evidence of skullduggery during the May 1870 voting tainted his victory and he chose not to run a second time. The senior Ellyson had helped create the Richmond School Board and his son served 16 years as its chairman. In his long political career, J. Taylor Ellyson served in the Virginia Senate (1885-1888, resigning his position on the city council to assume that part-time state legislative position), and as mayor of Richmond (1888–1894). He also served for twelve years (1906–1918) as the 20th Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. To date, he is the only Lieutenant Governor of the commonwealth to serve for three terms. The second mayor Ellyson succeeded William C. Carrington, who had served since 1876 and announced his retirement for health reasons. During the previous several years, scandals concerning misappropriation of city funds had rocked Richmond's city council (which was more powerful than the mayor whom it elected), particularly after the death of long-time city collector Aylett R. Woodson (who had served from 1876 until his death in 1887). Although the younger Ellyson held progressive views concerning labor unions, he was a conservative on race and other matters during what would become his three terms as mayor. Many Republicans had been removed from city offices when Richmond helped elect Grover Cleveland president in 1884, and local Democrats took control of city hall. After Ellyson's summertime election nearly four years later, additional black and white Republicans were soon removed from city offices and jobs. In the fall of 1888, Democrats carried the city for President Cleveland (who however, lost the election on a national level.) Ellyson was active in the Lost Cause movement, as well as revitalized the state's Democratic Party from the postwar Conservative Party of Virginia which his father had helped John S. Barbour, Jr. found. J. Taylor Ellyson worked with the Martin Organization and helped pass many Jim Crow laws. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor in 1897 (fellow Confederate veteran James Hoge Tyler winning the party's nomination, then easily winning the general election). Ellyson served as president of the Jefferson Davis Monument Association and of the Richmond Howitzers Association. Active in both the R. E. Lee and George E. Pickett Camps of Confederate veterans, Ellyson represented both in the annual conventions of United Confederate Veterans. A member of