After Ellen Call Long acquired the property, The Grove remained an important social gathering place for the political and economic elite of Tallahassee. In addition to a thriving legal practice, her husband, Medicus A. Long, became prominent in state politics and served in the state legislature as a senator. Like her father, Ellen was an ardent Unionist, a fact which strained relations between her and her husband, who was an outspoken secessionist. Her husband eventually left for Texas in the late 1850s, and they spent the rest of their lives separated although they never divorced. They had eight children, of whom only two lived to adulthood.