Ambrose E. Gonzales

Ambrose Elliott Gonzales (May 27, 1857 – July 11, 1926) was born on a plantation in Colleton County, South Carolina. Gonzales was the son of Colonel Ambrosio José Gonzales and Harriet Rutledge Elliot. His father was a Colonel in the Confederate Army who played an instrumental role in the defenses of South Carolina during the American Civil War. Prior to this his father was a Cuban revolutionary leader who opposed oppressive Spanish rule. His mother was the daughter of the wealthy South Carolina rice planter, state senator and writer, William Elliott.

Although he had no formal education past the age of seventeen, Ambrose Gonzales became the telegraph operator in Grahamville, South Carolina, in October 1874, in order to help support his large extended family. His work as a telegraph operator lead to his involvement in state politics; during the controversial election of 1876, his telegraph office became the primary source of election results in the Beaufort County, South Carolina region for both the national presidential race between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel Tilden, and the contest for the governorship of South Carolina, in which Wade Hampton III ran on a platform of ending the Reconstruction Era in the United States. As a result, Gonzales became a Bourbon Democrat.

In 1879, Gonzales left the telegraph office in Grahamville to manage the family plantation, Oak Lawn, on the Edisto River. After several years of failing harvests, he left for New York City in 1881, where he became a telegrapher for Western Union, while partaking of the rich cultural life of the city. He left for New Orleans in the autumn of 1882 to work as a telegrapher, but returned to New York the following year. In 1885, he left New York for good and returned to South Carolina to join his brother Narciso Gener Gonzales (1858–1903) on the staff of the Charleston, South Carolina News and Courier.

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