Ellen Call Long
9 September 1825 – 17 December 1905
Ellen Call Long was the daughter of territorial governor Richard Keith Call and Mary Kirkman Call. Often referred to as “the first white child born in Tallahassee,” Ellen Call was a prominent member of Tallahassee society. [1] She attended a school for young ladies in Franklin, Maryland starting in 1835 and did not return to Tallahassee until 1843.[2] In the following year, she married her husband, Medicus Long. They would have four children over the next five years: Richard Call Long, Hugh, Mary Louisa, and Ellen Douglass. Hugh did not survive infancy, and Ellen Douglass died at the age of two in 1853. In 1854, Eleanora “Nonie” Kirkman Long was born, but Mary Louisa died unexpectedly three years later in 1857 at the age of eight. Like her mother, Ellen only had two children that survived into adulthood.[3]
Ellen Call Long, after being deeded The Grove from her father in 1851, lived at the Call-Collins house until her death. She worked closely with her father Richard Keith Call, and continued his legacy after his death in 1862.[4] Following the Civil War, when Ellen could no longer financially rely on enslaved peoples labor, Ellen began to rent out rooms in the Call-Collins house and pursued other business ventures to generate income.[5] Over the next decade, Ellen became an increasingly active member of Tallahassee society, participating in the Centennial Exposition in 1874 as both Corresponding Secretary for the State of Florida and as Florida’s delegate. She represented Florida on various other committees geared towards celebrating Florida’s role in the United States. Ellen took up silk-making in the 1870s and wrote an illustrated monograph titled Silk Farming in Florida. Ellen was an accomplished writer, contributing to Tallahassee and Florida newspapers, and she wrote another book, a historical memoir, titled Florida Breezes in 1883.[6] Ellen was an active member of Tallahassee not only politically but socially, as The Grove was a social center for Tallahassee elites. Still, Ellen struggled financially and was forced to sell large portions of The Grove and items from the Call-Collins house to compensate. Ultimately, The Grove was forced to foreclose, and her grandson-in-law Charles Hunt, husband of Reinette Long Hunt, acquired the title and gave it to his wife. This act was directly against Ellen’s wishes, who wanted to the house to go to her daughter Nonie, and she spent the last years of her life struggling with her family over the ownership of The Grove. She died in 1905 and had her funeral service and burial at the home that she had treasured so much.[7]
