Ellen’s Creek Watershed Group
© Ellen’s Creek Watershed Group, 2014
Where did the name Ellen’s Creek come from?
Who was the Ellen that Ellen's Creek was named after? That is the question that the
members of the Ellen's Creek Watershed Group had, so a contest was held in the
summer of 2013 to find out.
The contest winner was Geraldine Forsythe who provided the following information:
As appears in the Old Protestant Burying Grounds (Elm Ave Cemetery)
Biographies:
Prominent Burials In the Old Protestant Burying Grounds
"Alida Ellen Gisborne - died 5 January 1854. She was the wife of Frederick W.
Gisborne, who was born in Lancashire, England, in 1824, and immigrated here
just three years before her death. Ellen's Creek is named after her, and Frederick
is remembered for laying the first submarine cable in the world, which was
between N.B. and P.E.I., in Nov., 1852. Mr. Walter Auld reports that the Island Telephone Company maintains the
Gisborne plot."
With that information, the chairman of the ECWG, Darragh Mogan investigated further and added.....
“Ellen was Alida Ellen Starr who came here with her husband (Frederick Gisborne) from England in 1850. They
lived at the then Warblington Manor at 303-305 North River road, a then as now yellow wood-sided building that
remains a residence. It was on a large tract of land that stretched down to the North River with panoramic vista
when facing west , north and south.
Ellen died at age 29 ( or 19 by some accounts) in 1854 and is buried in the Old Protestant Burial Ground on
University Ave., downtown. She and her husband had two children.
"There was also a little settlement near the Royalty junction road know as Ellen’s Grove that I suspect took her
name as well."
Ellen's burial plot and gravestone can be found in the Old Protestant Burial Ground on University Avenue opposite Douglas
Street.