Ellicott instead accepted an offer by Pennsylvania governor Thomas McKean and took a position as Secretary of the Pennsylvania Land Office. The family moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Ellicott seemed content with a clerk's job that left him enough time for his own scientific and private interests and that provided a steady income for the family. The Andrew Ellicott House, in Lancaster where he resided from 1801 to 1813, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972, by the National Park Service.