William Ellis, 1892-1962 Longtime Kaua‘i Board of Supervisors Chairman William Ellis was born in 1892 at Nawiliwili into a large Hawaiian family, where he was well versed in Hawaiian ways and learned to speak the Hawaiian language beautifully and poetically.
William Ellis, 1892-1962
Longtime Kaua‘i Board of Supervisors Chairman William Ellis was born in 1892 at Nawiliwili into a large Hawaiian family, where he was well versed in Hawaiian ways and learned to speak the Hawaiian language beautifully and poetically.
Prior to his election to the Board of Supervisors in 1930, Ellis attended Kamehameha School, was chief mechanic at Coney Garage in Nawiliwili and proprietor of a Nawiliwili service station.
His political career on the Board spanned three decades (1930-1951), during which time he was designated or elected Chairman 17 times — an era of Kaua‘i government marked by an unsurpassed degree of decorum and harmony.
In 1962, when he retired as sub-land agent for Kaua‘i, Ellis commented on the elected officials of his generation and the people they served: “We had no headline makers. Nobody thought about talking for the newspapers. We just tried to do what was right for the people. We discussed things freely and decided.”
And, “In the old days, the people felt they were provided for, and were not demanding everything. People could take care of themselves. They were not always demanding more and more.”
As was the case with the old-time Hawaiians, reality for Ellis was both physical and spiritual, with the latter taken seriously and spoken of only with caution.
When asked once what he knew of kahunas, Ellis’s reply was typically guarded: “Some are good and others are bad,” he said, and left it at that, quite in contrast to his usual frankness.
Yet with his children he shared his Hawaiian values and his hands-on knowledge of Hawaiian culture and customs, and showed them places around Kaua‘i important in the history and legends of his people. William Ellis and Maria Piihalao Ellis raised seven children. He died in 1962.
