EELLS, DAN PARMELEE (16 Apr. 1825-14 Aug. 1903), a banker and financier born in Westmoreland, N.Y. to the Rev. James and Mehitable (Parmelee) Eells, moved with his family to Ohio in 1831, settling in Amherst in 1837. Eells entered Oberlin College in 1843, transferred to Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. in 1844, but left college in 1846 to support himself, teaching and then working as a bookkeeper in a Cleveland commission house. He continued studying by correspondence, however, graduating from Hamilton in 1848. Eells became a bookkeeper in the Commercial Branch of the State Bank of Ohio in Cleveland in 1849, a teller in 1853, and a cashier in 1858. When the bank reorganized as the Commercial Natl. Bank of Cleveland in 1865, Eells became vice-president, and was president from 1868 until his retirement in 1897. Eells was a director of 32 firms, and held interests in oil, iron, steel, cement, coke, gas, and railroads.
Eells was active civic and religious organizations. He was a trustee of several colleges; president and trustee of the Cleveland YMCA; president of the Cleveland Bible Society; treasurer of the Protestant Orphans' Asylum and the Home for Aged Women; and treasurer and vice-president of the CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY and the BETHEL UNION. In 1882, Eells bought land and built the Willson Ave. Presbyterian Church, renamed the Eells Memorial Presbyterian Church in 1903. In Sept. 1849, Eells married Mary M. Howard, who died in 1859. He married Mary Witt in Jan. 1861. Eells's son was Howard Parmelee Eells. Eells is buried in LAKE VIEW CEMETERY.
Howard P. Eells, Jr., Family Papers, WRHS.