vital records sources
go to Horatia Blanche Cunningham's page

Sometime when Charles was a young boy, the family moved from his grandmother Hoyt's house in Manhattan to Upper Montclair, New Jersey. While in Montclair, "Charlie" went to Mt. Hebron School at the corner of Grove Street and Bellevue Avenue.

Mt. Hebron School, Upper Montclair

When his father died, Charles and his mother moved to Brooklyn to live with her Hoyt aunts on St. Felix Street. Although Aunt Louisa Hoyt was a Methodist, the Ellingwoods went to an Episcopal Church. With the recommendation of the rector of the Church of the Redeemer at 5th Avenue and Pacific Street, he was accepted at the Trinity School in New York. He and his mother were living at 83 St. James Place near Pratt University by 1893. Given that Horatia Cunningham must have also been living near Pratt where she was teaching wood-carving (and maybe attended the same church), this may have been how they met. They married at the Cunningham home at 203 Claremont Street in Montclair by Rev. Frederick Carter of St. Luke's Episcopal Church. A marriage notice in a Pratt bulletin says they were to live in Glen Ridge, but they were soon living at 78 Clinton Avenue, Montclair, a house Charles' mother recently bought. She lived with Charles and Horatia for the rest of her life. Horatia's mother moved from Claremont Street to 80 Clinton Avenue, and they spent the rest of her life next to the Ellingwoods.
     Charles was a stockbroker in partnership with his brother-in-law James Cunningham between 1895 and 1901. He was a partner in the creation of the Wolverine Lubricants Company in 1911. Their most notable product was Wolf's Head Oil, a motor oil distributed nationally. It was a fine-grade oil popular for high performance engines - airplanes, boats and limousines - and although far removed from when the family was a part of the company, it's been more recently used for race cars. Charles eventually headed the firm. The family lost their positions in the company about 1930. Charles was removed as a voting board member for misappropriation of company funds. The family lived in a succession of large houses in Montclair and owned summer houses, at various times, in Rumford, New Jersey, and Groton Long Point, Connecticut. Charles owned a sloop called Diana, which was raced on Long Island Sound. He Charles died at the Cunningham family home on Clinton Street and is buried in Restland Memorial Park, Hanover, New Jersey.

children of Charles Hoyt Ellingwood and Horatia Blanche Cunningham:

i. Evelyn Horatia b. 26 July 1896
ii. Virginia b. 5 June 1898