John Ellison Vassar married Mary Lee and moved to Poughkeepsie. When Vassar was twenty years old he sustained a severe injury when his foot slipped through a log bridge over a creek near his house. John Ellison Vassar began working in the brickyard at the age of twelve. Their product was so popular that they sold the farm and James moved to Poughkeepsie to start a brewery, while Thomas established a brickyard on the Dutchess Turnpike. They then began to brew ale, which they sold to supplement their income. Upon his return, he and his brother planted the first crop of barley in Dutchess County. Thomas returned to Norfolk briefly to obtain implements and seeds. Thomas married Joanna Ellison of Flatbush on Long Island. They settled near the village of Poughkeepsie, New York, and took up farming on the Wappingers Creek near Manchester Bridge. Thomas's family were Baptists, and he and his younger brother James (father of noted brewer and philanthropist Matthew Vassar) emigrated to the United States in 1796. Originally named "Vasseur", the family was descended from French Huguenots who arrived in England in the mid-eighteenth century. He was the son of Thomas Vassar of Norfolk, England. John Ellison Vassar was born January 13, 1813, and named for his maternal uncle. John Ellison Vassar (1813–1878) was an American lay preacher and missionary.
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