Benjamin Ellicott

Benjamin Ellicott (April 17, 1765 – December 10, 1827) was a surveyor, a county judge and a member of the United States House of Representatives from the State of New York.

Born in Bucks County, Pennsylvania in 1765, Benjamin Ellicott accompanied his brothers Andrew and Joseph Ellicott in 1789 to the British Province of Upper Canada in a survey to determine the western boundary of the State of New York. During 1791, 1792 and 1793, he assisted his brothers in the survey and mapping of the future City of Washington and in the survey of the original boundaries of the 100 square miles (260 km²) District of Columbia (see Boundary Markers of the Original District of Columbia). During November–December 1792, he led a survey that helped settle a boundary dispute within the present Ontario County in western New York state (see Preemption Line). From 1794-1797, he was employed as a surveyor and draftsman for the Holland Land Company, assisting his brother Joseph in surveys of the company's lands in western Pennsylvania. In 1798, he was in charge of the company's surveys in western New York. In 1803, he became one of the first judges of the Court of Common Pleas of Genesee County, New York in Batavia.

Ellicott was elected as a Democratic-Republican representative from New York to the Fifteenth Congress (March 4, 1817 – March 3, 1819). He was an unsuccessful candidate for election in 1820 to the Seventeenth Congress. He then retired from active life and in 1826 moved to Williamsville, New York, where he died December 10, 1827. He was interred in the graveyard at Williamsville. He was reinterred in Batavia Cemetery, Batavia, New York, in 1849.