Ely Bruce Dewing seventh of eight children of Dexter Dewing and Deidamia Weaver, was born at French Creek, Chautauqua county, New York, June 21, 1834. His parents came to Elkhorn in 1843, where he finished his schooling. He learned printer’s ways at Centerville, Michigan, and at White Pigeon. He married, August 15. 1855, Elizabeth, daughter of George Dixon and Theresa Sowerby. Commercial pursuits, a few small investments in village real estate, sports of held and stream, and local politics occupied him until 187G, when ill health forced him to less strenuous life.
In 1873 he began work as local contributor to the Lake Geneva Herald, but did not bind his pen to “rural scoops”; for it rambled in a way that delighted many readers and but mildly rasped a few. He wrote a few songs for his friend Webster’s music—his pen-names, “Edwin Bruce,” “Luke Collins,” and “Paul Vane.” Among these were “All Rights for All,” “Get Out of Mexico,” “Our Soldiers’ Welcome Home,” “There’s a Light in the Window for Ale,” “The Past We Can Never Recall,” “The Spring at the Foot of the Hill,” “Under the Beautiful Stars,” “To Little Hattie Harvey,”— perhaps few or none of them now in demand.
He had served the village as supervisor, and was experienced in affairs of the county. In 1878 he was chosen assemblyman over Hollis Latham, the one man in the district whom a coalition of Democrats, Greenbackers and anti-Reynolds Republicans might hope to elect. In the contest at this session of Howe, Carpenter and Keyes for a full term in the Federal Senate. Mr. Dewing voted for Horace Rublee.
His editorship, 1884-88, and service in the circuit clerk’s office, 1889-94, have been told. In 1900 he became president of a new board of library directors, his last public service. While canvassing the county for his return to the clerkship of the circuit, a short, sharp illness closed his useful and honorable life, August 7, 1902. It might be said of him that he touched nothing but to do it well, and often admirably. One of the most modest of men, few or none of his friends knew all his intellectual measure.
From: Beckwith, A.C. (1912). History of Walworth County Wisconsin