An American Family History

“McKellar had many friends in this country
who looked upon him as a jolly Scotchman,
possessing many excellent qualities and one fatal vice."
Eliza McKellar quoted in the San Diego Union Tribune

"...never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced...-- Abraham Lincoln 1863

Ellar McKellar was born in Greenwich, Scotland in 1841. (Greenock according to his Civil War enlistment records.) He was Eliza Bridges Jones McKellar's husband and Matilda Jones’ step-father. In her application to receive her Civil War Widow’s pension Eliza said

. . . that the parents of said soldier died when he was about three years of age;  then he was sent to live with relatives in Canada, by whom he so was abused that he ran away from their home; this was when he was about 12 years of age. He never communicated with said relations afterwards.

According to his army enlistment records, he was a sailor prior to enlistment. He had grey eyes, brown hair, a light complexion and was five feet five inches tall.

Ellar enlisted in the Union army for three years at Cincinnati, Ohio on February 20, 1864 when he was twenty three years old. He served as a private in Company H of the 13th Ohio Cavalry. He was wounded and sent to the hospital on August 11, 1864. He was still in the hospital in October, 1864. He remained there until he was transferred to the hospital on Bedloe's Island in New York on December 2, 1864. He was discharged on June 5, 1865 in Amelia Court House, Virginia.

He again enlisted on on January 16, 1866. He served under McClellan and then under Grant according to Mrs. Catherine Hill in a 1910 letter to the General Land Office. He “served both in the Rebellion and 3 yrs after in Indian wars." He was discharged on October 22, 1868.

After discharge from the army, Ellar wound up in San Diego.

McKellar had been keeping horses at a place in South Soledad Valley for A.L. Seeley who operated the mail stage between the Cosmopolitan House (later Casa Bandini) in Old Town and Los Angeles. 

Nancy Ewing wrote in Del Mar Looking Back that he arrived at Cocktail Springs in about 1874 when he was 32. 

McKellar heard of this piece of government land on the mesa between Cordero and San Dieguito valleys, and took it up, moving Seely’s horses there.

Ellar and Eliza ran the stagecoach station at Cocktail Springs. In the 1880 Federal Census, Ellar was listed as a farmer, age 38 in San Dieguito Township.

On July 30 1884 when he was 42 years old, he purchased land in San Diego County, Section 18, Township 14, Range 3.

In 1884 he and Albert Angier were named delegates to the Democratic County Convention.

Ellar McKellar was quite a character and Ewing called him “one of the most colorful figures in Del Mar’s history." 

McKellar had a reputation for the bottle. When he was making bricks he would say, “I am troubled with a pain in my shoulder, but if I had a drop of whiskey it would feel better.

He was appointed the deputy road-master in the San Dieguito Road District and was cited for good work according to the San Diego Union on August 6, 1884. On February 17, 1885 he paid a fine for his "Sunday misdeeds," which caused him to be booked on a change of disturbing the peace.

What started the brawl is unknown, but it may well have been Mac’s resentment of the encroachment of the Iron Hose on his transportation territory. At any rate, he got up to Encinitas where he apparently decided to take on the track-laying force of the California Southern Railroad. And even in the 1880s trackmen were robust. It was quite a fight while it lasted! A few days later McKellar was sitting out in front of the stage station nursing an assortment of bruises, black eyes, and what have you. A friend drove up and inquired as to what happened. “Oh," he replied with great dignity. “I tried to clean out that railroad gang-but 300 of them were too much for one man." (Davidson, chapter 2, page 3)

He died according to the Coroner’s Certificate

on the 5th day of Sept 1885 between the hours of 5 and 6 A M in the Bay of San Diego near the end of the P .C. S. [Pacific Coast Steamship] Wharf.

His death was described in the three articles below from the San Diego Union which mentioned that he was singing The Ship that Never Returned.