William Ellery Sr.

William Ellery Sr. (31 October 1701 – 15 March 1764) was a merchant and politician in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations during the mid-18th century.

Benjamin Ellery and Abigail Wilkins of Gloucester and Bristol, Massachusetts, and Newport, Rhode Island.

He became a wealthy merchant in Newport, and in time served in a number of civic capacities.

[1] From 1738 to 1740 he served as a Newport Justice of the Inferior Court of Common Pleas and General Sessions of the Peace.

His second son, William Ellery, became a prominent Newport lawyer, was a member of the Continental Congress, and one of Rhode Island's two signers of the United States Declaration of Independence.