Public Service
On Jan. 13, 1809, aged only 21 years, he was appointed deputy attorney general for Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.
He served as a representative in the Pennsylvania General Assembly in the years 1813 and 1814, having been elected from the legislative district composed of Dauphin and Lebanon Counties.
In 1814, he volunteered for the army, and served as aide de campe to General Forster during the Chesapeake campaign. While in this position, he was elected to the Fourteenth Congress for the congressional district consisting of the counties of Lancaster, Dauphin, and Lebanon, but never fulfilled that office, for on 3 July 1815, Ellmaker was appointed and commissioned president judge of the Twelfth Judicial District of Pennsylvania, composed of the counties of Dauphin, Lebanon, and Schuylkill.
Ellmaker resigned as President Judge of the 12th district 21 December 1816 to accept an appointment made that same day by Governor Simon Snyder as state attorney general. Governor William Findlay re-appointed him to that office on 1 April 1818. He held the office until December 1819.
He declined an offer from James Monroe of an appointment as United States Secretary of War. During his career, he also twice turned down offers of appointment as Secretary of the Commonwealth, and twice as justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
In 1821, he removed to Lancaster, Pennsylvania to practice law there.
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