Findagrave has birthdate as August 10, 1713.
The founder of Ely Cemetery, Capt. William Ely died at age 88. A native of colonial Connecticut, he was the eldest of six children born to Richard Ely and his first wife, the former Ruhama Thompson. He acquired his military title during the French and Indian War, when he served in the 3rd Regiment of Connecticut Militia. In 1737 he married the former Elizabeth Perkins, and the couple became the parents of ten children, eight of whom survived to adulthood. Beset with financial problems and barely able to eke out a living from their land in Lyme, in 1756 the Elys moved to present day Livingston, New Jersey, where they settled "on the Orange Mountain". Approximately a year before the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, Capt. Ely reserved this part of his farm as a family burial ground, and at least six generations of his descendants were laid to rest here by the late Victorian era. Predeceased by his wife in 1782, the old soldier joined her in death twenty years later, in the spring of 1802. Although Capt. Ely's military title does not appear on either his brown sandstone stele or his marble footstone, his name is followed by "SEN" on the former, distinguishing him from his son and namesake who is buried nearby. His brown sandstone stele is now ensconced in granite to aid in its preservaton.