Ellis Sipperly was born in Schaghticoke about 1845. The 1850 census listed his family: father Peter, Jr., 34; a farmer with an estate of $3000, mother Mary, 28; plus siblings Absolom, 9; Emeretta, five months; and uncle, John, 32; and Cynthia, 17, relationship unknown. Ellis was 6. The ancestors of these Sipperlys were Palatine Germans who came to Schaghticoke around the time of the Revolution and lived in the Melrose part of town. Ellis’ mother was born Mary Diver. The Divers were another old Schaghticoke family. Peter and Mary had married in St. John’s Lutheran Church in Melrose in 1838. Unfortunately, Peter Sipperly died in 1860. He is buried in the Lutheran Cemetery at the junction of Valley Falls Road and Northline Drive, along with little Emeretta, who died in 1851.
I did not find the family in the 1855 census, but in 1860 they were in the village of Schaghticoke. Widow Mary, 39, had real estate of $750 and a personal estate of $200. Ellis, 15, had a brother Herman Diver, age 5, and a sister Emma, 3. Mary’s mother lived with the family. She was 70-year-old widow Abigail Diver, with a personal estate of $2500.
Ellis was a bit young to enlist when the Civil War began. For reasons we will probably never know, he enlisted in the 1st Connecticut Heavy Artillery Regiment on August 25, 1863. The unit had formed a year earlier, so he was filling in a vacancy created by casualties. The 1st Connecticut spent basically all of Ellis’ time in it in the siege of Petersburg. He mustered out with the unit at the end of the war, on September 25, 1865.
There was an Ellis M. Cipperly in the city directory of Troy in 1866-1872. In 1866 he was a clerk, in 1872, a driver. Perhaps this was Ellis? I hope not, as in 1870 he was arrested for the brutal beating of his wife while he was intoxicated. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find Ellis again until the Veterans Census of 1890, in Saratoga. In the 1892 N.Y.S. Census, he was in Saratoga, age 49, no occupation given, with wife A. Clara, 56, and son Ellis M., 14. Ellis appeared in the city directories for Saratoga for a couple of years around that time, as a bartender and a Hackman (driver). In 1907 either he or his son had a livery, sale, and boarding stable. There is an E. Sipperly in the 1910 US Census for Schenectady, age 71, with wife C., age 76. He was a watchman at the locomotive works. She stated they had had one child, who was living, and that they had been married 27 years. The numbers don’t quite add up, but I feel this may be Ellis. I also believe that son Ellis was married and living in Peekskill by this point. Apparently Ellis, Sr. didn’t obtain a pension. His mother lived in Lansingburgh for a number of years, but died in 1899 in Greeley, Colorado, where her son Herman was a merchant.
I believe that Ellis died in December 1919 and is buried in the Old Van Cortlandville Cemetery in Westchester County, NY. How he ended up there, I am not sure, but there was a Methodist minister named Ellis Sipperly in the area at the time- perhaps his son?. His name is spelled “Elias” on the tombstone, but the NY death register for the date spells it “Ellis”, and the correct Civil War service is listed on the tombstone. In addition, he is listed as 81-years-old, which would put his birthdate in 1838.
tombstone of Elias (Ellis) Sipperly at the VanCortlandtville Cemetery, Westchester Co. thanks to find-a-grave
History of the Town of Schaghticoke 