Tazewell Ellett (1 January 1857–18 May 1914), member of the House of Representatives, was the son of Andrew Lewis Ellett, a successful merchant, and Nannie Rosalie Tazewell Ellett. Born in Richmond, he grew up there and in Hanover County. Ellett graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1876 and received a law degree from the University of Virginia in 1878. Returning to Richmond, he opened a legal practice with a partner. Ellett joined the 1st Infantry Regiment, Virginia Volunteers, and on 11 September 1885 was elected lieutenant colonel, a rank he held until resigning two years later. On 5 February 1885 Ellett married Josephine Lyons Scott. They had one son and two daughters before her death on 16 June 1892.
Interested in politics since his youth, Ellett became a member of Richmond's Democratic committee in July 1881 and served as its first vice president in 1887 and as chair in 1888. During the 1880s he also sat on the State Democratic Committee, and in 1888 he was a presidential elector for Grover Cleveland. Noted for his ability as a stump speaker, Ellett often worked as a party canvasser during elections. He first sought public office during the summer of 1890, when he unsuccessfully attempted to secure the Democratic nomination for a seat in the House of Representatives. Four years later Ellett lost the primary to select the party's candidate for commonwealth's attorney of Richmond. On 8 August 1894, however, the delegates at the Democratic convention chose him as the congressional candidate over the seven-term incumbent George Douglas Wise. Ellett supported lowering tariffs and increasing the money supply, and on 6 November he won 11,745 votes out of 18,551 cast and easily defeated four other candidates. In December the Republican nominee challenged the validity of Ellett's election, but he withdrew his attempt to contest the result on 10 January 1895.
Representing the Third District, which consisted of Chesterfield, Goochland, Hanover, Henrico, King William, and New Kent Counties and the cities of Manchester and Richmond, Ellett took his seat in the Fifty-fourth Congress in December 1895. Before the first session he had stated his intention to propose that the federal government maintain the Civil War battlefields around Richmond as public parks, but he did not introduce his plan before the House of Representatives. During both sessions Ellett sat on the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce and on the Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries. He joined other members of the commerce committee in supporting the construction of a canal across Nicaragua to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Ellett did not vote in March 1896 when the House acknowledged Cuba's right of belligerency in its fight with Spain, but a month later he joined a small minority in opposing similar resolutions approved by the Senate. He stated his personal desire for Cuba's independence while criticizing the time the debates took from domestic issues. He argued at length on the House floor that certain pilotage fees on sailing vessels should be abolished and that legislation curbing the sale of railroad tickets by unauthorized brokers would contribute to monopolization by the large railroads to the public's detriment.
Ellett supported the Democratic Party platform and the free coinage of silver when he ran for reelection in 1896. After losing a close race at the convention held in September, he canvassed for the party's choice of congressional candidate. Ellett turned his attention to business affairs and in 1897, while operating in connection with a syndicate of American distillers, helped secure a concession from the Venezuelan government to manufacture and sell tax-free liquor. Early in 1898 he and several partners incorporated the American Development Company of the United States to develop property, infrastructure, and industry in Venezuela, and also the United States Distilling Company to manufacture alcohol products. Ellett was vice president of the former and general counsel of the latter at the time they were incorporated, but neither enterprise succeeded. A few years later he was involved in a failed venture to raise funds to establish a shipbuilding company.
Ellett continued to practice law in Richmond, and in July 1898 his name was again floated as a possible candidate for Congress. By 1904 he had moved to New York City, where he opened a law office. Known for his sometimes impulsive behavior, in 1905 Ellett was arrested for disorderly conduct following a fight at a restaurant near Broadway, and four years later he was arraigned on charges of harassing a young woman. He continued to invest in business ventures and had moved to Bergen County, New Jersey, by 1910. Suffering from Bright's disease, Tazewell Ellett died on 18 May 1914 at his daughter's home in Summerville, South Carolina. He was buried in Hollywood Cemetery, in Richmond.
Sources Consulted:
Biographies in Richmond Times, 19 Aug. 1890, and Official Congressional Directory, 54th Cong., 2d sess., 1896, Senate Doc. 16, serial 3473, 131–132 (with variant birth date of 1 Jan. 1856); Birth Register, Richmond City (birth date of 1 Jan. 1857), Bureau of Vital Statistics (BVS), Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Health, Record Group 36, Library of Virginia; BVS Marriage Register, Richmond City; Jo Lane Stern, Roster, Commissioned Officers Virginia Volunteers, 1871–1920 (1921), 76; Richmond Dispatch, 6 Feb. 1885, 29 July 1890, 20 Aug. 1890, 27 July 1894, 9 Aug. 1894, 18 Sept. 1894, 9 Nov. 1894, 23 Dec. 1894, 11 Jan. 1895, 14 Aug. 1896, 5 Sept. 1896, 25 Oct. 1896, 1 Feb. 1898; Richmond Times, 27 July 1890; Baltimore Sun, 21 Sept. 1895, 4 Feb. 1898; Washington Post, 26 Aug. 1897, 6 Feb. 1898; Richmond News Leader, 24 Aug. 1905; New York Times, 24 Aug. 1905, 16 Dec. 1909; Congressional Record, 54th Cong., 1st sess., esp. 284, 2359, 3581–3584, 3628, 3775–3777, 4533, 2d sess., esp. 1350, 2473–2476; Nicaragua Canal, 54th Cong., 1st sess., 1896, House Rept. 2126, serial 3465; Acts and Joint Resolutions Passed by the General Assembly of the State of Virginia, During the Session of 1897–98 (1898), 163–164; obituaries in Richmond News Leader, 19 May 1914, and Richmond Times-Dispatch, 20 May 1914 (portrait).