[1] Born in Lyme, Connecticut, John Ely became a physician and surgeon with a reputation that reached far beyond the Saybrook[A][3] He specialized in the treatment of smallpox.
He bought Duck Island off the Saybrook shore (now a major Egret rookery) and then built a hospital for his smallpox patients.
[4] When this disease broke out in the Army of General George Washington in July 1776, Dr. Ely was sent for and did much to arrest the plague.
[1][5][6][7] Colonel Ely is remembered as a soldier of the American Revolution and as a patriot who gave not only his skill as physician and military commander to the cause, but his fortune and his health.
[4] In 1775 Ely, after the news of the battle of Lexington came to Westport, mustered a company of militia as Captain and marched with it to Roxbury, now part of Boston.
The next year as Major he performed a tour of duty as commandant at Fort Trumbull, New London, also serving there as physician and one day he sent a "pithy" letter to the Captain of a vessel at the mouth of the harbor suspected of being English which promptly sailed away.
[13] General Henry Knox,[14] Secretary of War, supported this and President Washington wrote the Colonel promising a successful outcome for his petition.
Some forty years later his heirs presented a claim to Congress, which was approved, but as most of the papers in the case had been lost, only $5,000.00 of back pay was allowed.
John Ely's grandson Samuel Griswold Goodrich, also known as Peter Parley, was a noted author and diplomat whose book Recollections of a Lifetime was the source for the information herein not otherwise cited.