Cornelius Ennis (September 26, 1813 – February 13, 1899) was a cotton shipper and railroad executive who served as
Mayor of Houston,
Texas.
His shipping enterprise ran Union blockades during the American Civil War.
Early life and career
He was born September 26, 1813, in
Belleville, New Jersey where he grew up and received his education.
In 1834, he moved to
New York City and started work in a drugstore, before using his learned trade to open his own drugstore in Houston in 1839.
He partnered with George W. Kimball and expanded the business, making their first shipment of cotton to Boston in 1841.
He married Kimball's sister Jeannette Ingals Kimball the same year. They had four children.
Kimball drowned off the Florida coast while escorting a cotton shipment and investment funds to New York in 1842, leading Ennis into his involvement with the railroad as a better transport option that needed investment.
Ennis started and was on the board of directors the
Houston and Texas Central Railway
The Houston and Texas Central Railway (H&TC), was an 872-mile (1403-km) railway system chartered in Texas in 1848, with construction beginning in 1856. The line eventually stretched from Houston northward to Dallas and Denison, Texas. with branch ...
in 1853 along with
William R. Baker
William Robinson Baker (1820–1890) was a railroad executive, Texas State Senator and Mayor of Houston, Texas.
Early life
Baker was born on May 21, 1820, in Baldwinsville, New York to Asa Baker and the former Hannah Robinson. He lived in New ...
,
Paul Bremond
Paul Bremond (October 11, 1810 – May 8, 1885) was an American businessman. He was a hatter, doing business in New York City and Philadelphia, and from 1840, a commission merchant in Galveston, in the Republic of Texas.
From the 1850s until ...
,
Thomas William House,
William J. Hutchins
William J. Hutchins (March 3, 1813 – June 4, 1884) was a businessman and a Mayor of Houston.
Early life
Hutchins was born in Duchess County New York. He spent most of his childhood in New Bern, North Carolina, where he stayed until the age o ...
and
William Marsh Rice.
As mayor he supervised the ''Houston Tap Railroad'' completion which was sold in 1858 and became the
Houston Tap and Brazoria Railway
The Houston Tap and Brazoria Railway was chartered in September 1856 to extend southward from Houston to West Columbia in Brazoria County. The railroad's nicknames were the Columbia Tap and the Sugar Road. The railway absorbed track from an earlie ...
. He also promoted construction of the
Houston Ship Channel
The Houston Ship Channel, in Houston, Texas, is part of the Port of Houston, one of the busiest seaports in the world. The channel is the conduit for ocean-going vessels between Houston-area terminals and the Gulf of Mexico, and it serves an incr ...
.
Mayor of Houston
He became the
Mayor of Houston July 1856 and served until December 1857. He had a band of robbers who were robbing shippers arrested.
Civil War era blockade running
In the
civil war he shipped cotton to Cuba and to England via Mexico despite the Union Navy's blockade.
His blockade running was so successful that after the war he further expanded his cotton export businesses and invested in the newspaper in Galveston now known as ''
The Daily News''.
Death and legacy
He died February 13, 1899, at his home in Houston and is buried at the
Glenwood Cemetery in Houston.
On the announcement of his death his name was reported as "Col. Cornelius Ennis".
, developed as a northern base of operations of the railroad he directed, is named for him. Several other towns in Texas were named for the railroad's directors.
[ He never lived there and there are no records he even ever visited.][ Two of his descendants visited the museum in 2008.]
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ennis, Cornelius
Mayors of Houston
People from Belleville, New Jersey
People from Houston
1813 births
1899 deaths