; Ellery von Gorrissen
 
ELLERY von GORRISSEN
 
 
Ellery von Gorrissen
 
 
Ellery von Gorrissen
Flugführerzeugnis erworben im
April 1910
 
 
Collection of Rene Hackstetter, 11-20-04
 

 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
via email from Dwight R. Messimer, 1-27-05
Ralph:
     I haven't been able to come up with a date of birth or his death, but hopefully this information will be useful to you.
     Ellery von Gorrissen was the eldest of the three sons.
     He received his pilot's license No. 4 21 April 1910 under the auspices of the Deutscheluftverein [DLV], which was the German branch of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale [FAI]
     He received his license to compete in FAI sanctioned events on 13 September 1911 and thereafter took part in several cash prize events.
     He set an endurance record on 7 November 1912 carrying five passengers for 23 minutes at Johannesthal in Berlin. He took off at 1541 and landed at 1604.
     He was a member of the Nazi Party, number 1331675, and joined the Allegmeine-SS on 3 September 1933, SS-No. 51357, with the rank of Sturmbahnführer [major]. On 21 March 1934 he was promoted to Obersturmbahnführer [Lt. Col.]
     The Berlin Senat named a street in his honor, Gorrissenstr, in the Teptow-Köpenick district, on 11 September. This is the site of the former Johannesthal flying field.
     I came up with this information while doing research on his younger brother, Karl von Gorrissen [1888-1918]. Karl was also a prewar pilot, having received FAI/DVL license No.178 on 9 April 1912.
I hope this is useful.
Dwight R. Messimer
 

 
 
ONLINE RESOURCES
     If you search for "Ellery von Gorrissen", using the Google search engine, (11-21-04), you will find nine links, all of them in German. Luckily, machine-translation links are available, but the results are not often very intelligible.
 
 
Liste der 817 deutschen Piloten vor Kriegsausbruch 1914
     The text of this website is written in German. However, a machine translation into English is available directly from the listing on Google. You can also access the translated version by clicking on:
English Version
      This page lists some 817 German pilots who flew before World War I. Included are the number of the license, the name of the aviator, his occupation and the date of the license. In the case of Ellery von Gorrissen, here is the translated entry.
 
  License
4
Name
Ellery von Gorrissen
Occupation
Second lieutenant a.D.
Date
21.04.1910
 
       You can access the website in German by clicking on the title above.  

 
 
Datum: 7.11.
     This page, on the "Chronik" website, offers a single note with respect to the record which von Gorrissen set on November 7, 1911. If you read German, you can access the story by clicking on the title above. For those of us who only read English, I have extracted the translated story which you can read directly below:
"A world record in the passenger flight was set by the citizen of Berlin, pilot Ellery von Gorrissen, in his petrol double-decker. The machine started from the Johannisthal airfield carrying Gorrissen and five passengers. The airplane was loaded with 428,5 kg, ascended at 15.41 o'clock and remained in the air until 16,04 o'clock."
 

 
 
 
 
GENEOLOGY
Via email from David Cazalet, 5-1-09
     I noticed your “In Memoriums” concerning Ellery von Gorrissen and his brother , Karl.
     I am an amateur genealogist interested in the descendants of Frederick Heinrich von Weissenfels (b. 1728, Elbing, West Prussia), who was apparently a cadet in Prussian army in about 1745, then served in the British Army in the American Colonies until 1756, then finally was a Lt. Col. in a several of New York Regiments during the American Revolution. He died in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1806. He served throughout the war and was with Washington at Valley Forge, Trenton, White Plains, etc. and was also present at the victory at Saratoga. He is referred to as Baron Frederick von Weissenfels, but I’ve not been able to prove his royal heritage.
     In your memorium you mention that Ellery, Karl and George’s father was Ebert von Gorrissen. I think his name was George because a marriage notice in the New York newspapers on Oct. 7, 1844 reports that George F. von Gorrissen of Hamburg, Germany, was married to Sarah Charlotte Anderson, the daughter of Elbert Anderson (1800-1888) and Martha Maria Ellery (1803-1880). Martha Marie Ellery was the daughter of Abraham Redwood Ellery (1773-1860) and Sarah Charlotte Weissenfels.
     Sarah Charlotte Weissenfels (1784-1837), was the daughter of Charles F. Weissenfels (1760-1795) (a Lt. during in the New York Levies during the American Revolution) and Rhoda Salter (1760-1805).
Charles F. Weissenfels was the son of Frederick von Weissenfels, whom I mentioned earlier and Mary Schumur.
     So, contrary to what you have listed as the men’s mother, while Sarah Charlotte Anderson was indeed a descendant of Frederick von Weissenfels, her maiden name was not von Weissenfels. She was in fact, the great, great granddaughter of Frederick von Weissenfels, the great, granddaughter of Charles F. Weissenfels, the granddaughter of Sarah Charlotte Weissenfels, and the daughter of Martha Maria Ellery.
     I hope this information is of some assistance to you.
     By the way, Mary Schumur was the daughter of Catherine Cazalet and John Schumur, thus my interest in the subject.
David Cazalet
 

 
 
If you have any information on this pioneer aviator
please contact me.
E-mail to Ralph Cooper
 

 
 
BackBack Home