Edwin M. Ellis was born August 17, 1853, the eldest son of Stephen and Elizabeth Coburn Ellis, in Walden, Vermont. His parent were farmers by trade, but the young Ellis did not wish to follow suit. In 1874 Edwin Ellis entered Cornell University to pursue a law degree. By 1876 however he felt called to the ministry and transferred to Princeton to attend the Seminary. Following graduation in the Spring of 1884, Reverend Ellis accepted his first assignment as a Presbyterian Home Missionary in Montana. He arrived in the Bitterroot Valley in the Fall of that year to establish a circuit that include Stevensville, Victor, Skalkaho, and Corvallis. He served in this capacity for seven years. In 1891 the Presbyterian Church formed the Board of Publication and Sunday School Missions. Reverend Ellis was appointed as the Board of Montana's first Synodical Superintendent of Sunday School Missions. Helena was chosen as his base of operations, so he moved his family to the state capitol in 1892. Reverend Ellis had vast distances to cover, with limited modes of transportation. He decided to supplement railroads and stage with the use of a bicycle. During the next three and a half decades the Reverend logged over 36,000 miles on his chainless Columia bicycle. Reverend Ellis retired in 1927. Edwin Ellis married Lilla Prince on July 28, 1885. The couple had two children, Wilder Prince (1886) and Nina Pauline (1889). Lilla Ellis died in Detroit in 1931. Reverend Ellis died in 1940.