Ellis, Crawford Hatch

Submitted by Mike Miller

Crawford Hatcher Ellis. The largest organization engaged in the handling and shipping of fruit between Central and South America and the United States is the United Fruit Company, owning and operating a fleet of steamships, and with business offices in the principal ports of the western hemisphere. The executive in charge of the offices at New Orleans almost since the inception of this company has been Crawford Hatcher Ellis. Mr. Ellis was born at Selma, Alabama, August 26, 1875, son of Thomas Jefferson and Elizabeth (Hatcher) Ellis. He was educated in public schools in Alabama, and graduated with honors in the commercial course from the Kentucky University at Lexington. His experience in tropical products and commerce began when at the age of eighteen he went to Central America as an employe of the Orr & Laubenheimer Company, who were engaged in the crude rubber business and operated steamers between Mobile and Nicaraugua. Mr. Ellis was one o; the company's representatives in Central America until 1897, when he was put in charge of the company's office at Mobile. The following year, in 1898, when the Bluefield Steamship Company was incorporated at New Orleans, he went with this organization as accountant. It was in December, 1899, that he entered the service of the United Fruit Company, which had been organized only a short the previously and which attracted him into its service as a young man with a knowledge of commercial conditions in Latin America. In 1900 he was appointed acting manager and in 1901, when only twenty-six years of age, was made manager of the entire southern business of this company. Subsequently he was promoted to various responsibilities in the general organization, having made a director of the company, and since then director and vice president, the positions he holds today. He has a beautifully appointed office at 321 St. Charles Street. Among other interesting features of the office are about one dozen loving cups which have been presented to Mr. Ellis at different times and by different organizations and testifying to his capable service in behalf of various movements for the welfare of the community of New Orleans, and the South in general. Mr. Ellis organized in 1911 and is president of the Pan-American Life Insurance Company. He is a vice president and director of the Whitney Central Bank. His prominence as a citizen and business man has also brought him honorary positions and titles on the staffs of Governors J. Y. Sanders, R. G. Pleasant and L. E. Hall. Mr. Ellis takes his recreation in automobiling, fishing, hunting and golfing, and is a member of the Boston Club, New Orleans Club, Southern Yacht Club, Motor League Club, Young Men's Gymnastic Club, and the various carnival organizations. He married, April 24, 1895, Miss Inez Molett Saffold. They have one daughter, Inez Lucile, who was Queen of the Carnival in 1915 and married Mr. Franz Hindermann in November, 1916. She has two sons, Crawford Ellis Hindermann aged eight, and Richard Lane Hindermann, aged two, grandsons of Mr. Ellis. A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), p. 354, by Henry E. Chambers. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.