Georgia and Georgians - the Digital Library of Georgia

GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS 2897He is one of the most popular officials of the county, and stands high in public,business, and professional circles. Fraternally, he is affiliated with theKnights of Pythias, at Glenville, Tattnall County, where he has also numerousfriends. With the members of his family he belongs to the Baptist Church,and has been liberal in Ms support of its movements.Judge Hodges was married to Miss Varina Anne Worsham, of the Cityof Macon, Georgia, on the 17th day of January, 1912, a daughter of Charles E.and Laura W. Worsham of said city, formerly of Crawford County, Georgia.To this union there was born on October 19, 1913, a son, Quinton Edward.WILLIAM D. ELLIS. Judge Ellis holds high and assured vantage-groundas one of the ablest jurists today upholding the dignity and prestige of thebench and bar of Georgia and his character and achievements are such as torender specially consistent in the compilation of this history a brief reviewof his career, one whose successive steps have been marked by earnest andeffective application and are today crowned by his distinguished services onthe bench of the Superior Courts of the Atlanta circuit. His third consecutive term in this important tribunal has been initiated on the 1st of January,1915. The judge has brought to the judicial office the admirable powers of awell disciplined mind of fine scholarship and professional attainments, andhis care and circumspection in the exercise of his functions have made hisrulings signally fair and impartial, have conserved justice and equity, andhave shown the broad scope and great accuracy of his knowledge of jurisprudence. His advancement represents the result of his resolute and ambitiouspurpose when he entered the legal profession and by his sentiments andactions gave evidence of his full appreciation of its dignity and responsibility,no lawyer in the State of Georgia having more definitely proved exponentof the best in the unwritten ethical code of the profession. Judge Ellis gaveloyal service as a youthful soldier in the Confederate ranks in the Civil warand the same intrinsic spirit of loyalty has characterized him in thought andaction during the years of his effective service as one of the world's nobleworkers in the "piping times of peace."Judge Ellis claims the State of South Carolina as the place of his nativityand is a scion of a sterling old family of the fair Southland. Until his thirteenth year he remained on the plantation of his father, Dr. William D. Ellis,near Allendale, Barnwell County, South Carolina, and there received excellenteducational discipline of a preliminary order, under the effective direction ofprivate tutors, besides which he had the fortuitous advantages of a home ofsignal culture and refinement, representative of the best in the fine old regimein the South, his father having been an able physician as well as a substantialplanter in South Carolina. Upon leaving the parental roof Judge Ellis enteredthe excellent military academy or school at Aiken, South Carolina, where hemade excellent advancement in scholastic lore and gained also effective military discipline. He continued his studies in this institution for a period ofthree years and though the inception of the war between the states of theNorth and the South found'him little more than a boy he was amply fortifiedin youthful loyalty and patriotic impulse, as well as in military tactics.In 1862 this alert and vigorous young son of the South would not consentlonger to be denied the honor and privilege of tendering his services in defenseof the cause of the Confederate States of America. He joined the EleventhSouth Carolina Regiment of Infantry, commanded by his uncle, Col.D. H. Ellis, upon whose staff he was assigned a position as a non-commissionedofficer. Later he was elected a lieutenant of Company B of his regiment,which was subsequently attached to Gen. Johnson Haygood's brigade. Inconnection with campaign service in Virginia, Judge Ellis lived up to thefull tension of the great conflict, since he there participated in all of theimportant engagements in which Haygood's gallant and famous brigade was