Born: Friday, October 26th, 1860
Died: Saturday, November 9th, 1940
Birthplace: Nodaway County, Missouri
Education: University of Missouri, B.A. (1883)
University of Virginia Law School (1884-1885)
Career: Assistant Prosecuting Attorney (1886-1887)
Tacoma City Attorney (1904-1906)
Served: Wednesday, May 10th, 1911 to Saturday, May 11th, 1918
Chief Justice: Monday, January 8th, 1917 to Saturday, May 11th, 1918
Political Party: Democrat
Appointing Governor: Hay (Republican)
Overton G. Ellis, the son of Dr. Thomas Cowie and Jane Harris (Gentry) Ellis, was born near the Nebraska and Iowa borders in northwestern Missouri. Ellis graduated as valedictorian from the University of Missouri in 1883 and attended the University of Virginia Law School from 1884 to 1885. He continued his law studies in the office of Edwards and Ellison in Maryville, and was admitted to the Missouri bar in 1886.Ellis began his professional career in Maryville and soon became assistant prosecuting attorney for Nodaway County (1886-1887). He became title attorney for the Lombard Investment Company of Kansas City in 1887 and was the company’s trial attorney between 1889 and 1892. Ellis resigned in 1892 and moved to Tacoma to continue his legal practice in what was then a village situated near the southern end of Puget Sound.
The future judge practiced alone until forming the law firm of Ellis and Fletcher in 1901, a partnership expanded to Ellis, Fletcher, and Evans in 1908. He served as Tacoma City Attorney for a two-year term beginning in 1904. Ellis served on the Tacoma Charter Commission that drafted the city’s new charter in 1909.
In 1910 Judge Frank Rudkin resigned from the state supreme court to accept a federal appointment. Although Democrat Ellis was Republican Governor Marion E. Hay’s second choice for the vacancy, most applauded the selection. With the exception of the short-term appointment of Stephen Chadwick, this was the first time a governor had crossed party lines to make a supreme court appointment. Hay remarked that he made his selection “wholly upon the recommendations from attorneys in whom I have absolute confidence, not from one but from many parts of the state.”
Appointing a Democrat proved to be good politics. The Progressives had succeeded in discrediting the partisan election of judges after the 1910 election. The appointment of Ellis sat well with this influential segment of state politics. Further, Ellis had not been an active Democrat. Also, since Rudkin was from Seattle, an appointment from the state’s west side was, by tradition, necessary. Ellis easily won the election in 1912 for a full six-year term but chose not to run for reelection, resigning seven years and a day after his initial appointment. He returned to Tacoma where he rejoined his old law partner, Robert H. Evans.
Ellis married Jennie Wilhite of Kansas City in August, 1894. He was active in several societies, including the Sons of the American Revolution (serving as president for two terms), Washington Historical Society, Tacoma Club, the Commercial Club, Washington State Bar Association, and American Bar Association.
Selected References
Washington State Bar Association Proceedings (1914), pp. 179-185; C. S. Reinhart, History of the Supreme Court of the Territory and State of Washington (n.d.), p. 77.
The preceding biography is from Charles Sheldon's The Washington High Bench: A Biographical History of the State Supreme Court, 1889-1991, © 1992 by the Board of Regents of Washington State University. Reprinted here with permission and licensed to the public under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License by The Temple of Justice Project.
