The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787/Volume 3/Appendix A/CCXCIII

by Max Farrand

ⅭⅭⅩⅭⅢ. Oliver Ellsworth Wood to George Bancroft.^[1]

March 6th, 1880.

Oliver Ellsworth, Jr., Judge E’s son, was his private secretary. In a manuscript of his,^[2] O. E. Jr., about the early history of Windsor occurs the following:

“He, Judge E., told me one day as I was reading a Newspaper to him containing Eulogiums upon the late General Washington, which among other things ascribed to him the founding of the American Government to which Judge Ellsworth objected, saying President Washington’s influence while in the Convention was not very great, at least not much as to the forming of the present Constitution of the United States in 1787, which Judge Ellsworth said was drawn by himself and five others, viz—General Alexander Hamilton, Gorham of Mass, deceased, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, Rutledge of South Carolina and Madison of Virginia.”

1. Bancroft MS., “Papers of Ellsworth,” in Lenox Library, New York City.
2. Stiles’ History of Ancient Windsor, Vol. Ⅰ, pp. 142–143, refers to the MS. of Oliver Ellsworth, Jr., as “written in 1802.”