Warner, Ellsworth C. (1884 - January 5, 1942)

Ellsworth C. Warner (1884 – January 5, 1942) was an American businessman. Born in Garden City, Minnesota, where Warner attended grammar and high school. After graduation Warner became a teacher and was in charge of a small country school during the winter months and worked odd jobs over the summers. He was appointed the state register of grain receipts in 1886, one of the first to be named to the position, which he held for a year before resigning to work for the Mankato Linseed Oil Company. He struck out on his own in 1889 and purchased a linseed oil mill at La Crosse, Wisconsin. He sold his mill to the National Linseed Oil Company in 1890 and began working for that same company as manager of its mills at La Crosse; Dubuque, Iowa; and St. Paul, Minnesota. He remained with the National Linseed Oil Company until it was bought by the American Linseed Oil Company in 1897. The following year, Warner, E.C. Bisbee, and W.C. Stone founded the Midland Linseed Oil Company, which at one point was considered to possess some of the most advanced factories in the country and shipped its products worldwide. In 1894 he purchased the McGill-Price Printing Company with his brother Eli S. Warner and Charles H. McGill, which grew into one of the most successful printing firms in the United States. Warner also held important positions in many financial institutions throughout Minnesota and Canada. He married Francis Melvina ‘Mellie’ Bisbee, his business partner’s sister, on January 15, 1890, with whom he had four sons. Midland Linseed began to falter due to an acrimonious divorce between Mellie and Ellsworth. In the end the divorce forced the sale of the company to the Archers-Daniels-Midland Company. Mellie Bisbee was awarded $1 million in the divorce settlement. Mellie again sued Warner in 1929 when she claimed that a $2,200 inheritance was seed money for nearly $5 million worth in oil mill investments. Unfortunately, no record of the results of this lawsuit has surfaced. Warner remarried with Roslyn Allen in 1930 and died in his winter home in Palm Beach, Florida in 1942.