James Taylor Ellyson (May 20, 1847 – March 18, 1919) was a former Confederate soldier, as well as Virginia lawyer and Democratic politician, who served in several positions in his native Richmond, Virginia and statewide. Early life and education Born in Richmond, Virginia to journalist and Baptist lay activist Henry K. Ellyson and his wife Elizabeth, James Taylor Ellyson was the second of their four sons, and also had three sisters (of whom only one survived to adulthood). His family owned enslaved persons. His father served briefly in the Virginia House of Delegates when James was growing up, but his main business was as a printer (and he would become half-owner of the Richmond Dispatch in late 1865). Henry Ellyson also served as sheriff of Henrico County beginning in 1857 and through the American Civil War, and published articles supporting slavery before the election of President Abraham Lincoln, which he had opposed. James Ellyson was educated by tutors and in private schools. When he reached legal age in 1863, he left Hampden-Sydney College and enlisted to fight for the Confederacy in the Second Company of Richmond Howitzers, where he served until surrendering with his company at Appomattox Courthouse near the war's end. James Ellyson attended Columbian College in Washington, D.C. for one term after the war, reportedly wearing his Confederate uniform. He then transferred to Richmond College (which his father was helping to restart) for one term, and from which his remaining younger brother William Ellyson would graduate in 1870. James Taylor Ellyson however, moved to Charlottesville to attend the University of Virginia, from which he graduated with a degree in law after editing the campus magazine and participating in the Sigma Chi fraternity and Jefferson Literary Society in his spare time. Politics Ellyson assisted at his father's paper, the Dispatch, briefly after graduation, then began a bookselling and stationary partnership with Henry Taylor of Baltimore, as "Ellyson & Taylor" from 1869-1879. Ellyson also became active in politics, and served for 14 years as chairman of the state's Democratic Central Committee. His first electoral victory was a seat on the Richmond City Council, and eventually he became its president. His father had helped found the Conservative Party of Virginia after the war, and won election as Richmond's first mayor after Congressional Reconstruction in 1870, first elected by a newly appointed city council (as affirmed by the Virginia Supreme Court) and