William Greenleaf Eliot

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

W.G. Eliot, from UUA Archives

William Greenleaf Eliot (1811 - 1887) was an American educator, Unitarian clergyman, and civic leader in Missouri. He is most famous for founding Washington University in St. Louis.

Eliot was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts. After attending the Friends Academy in New Bedford, Eliot attended Columbian College, Washington, D.C., and graduated in 1831. Eliot then attended Harvard Divinity School and graduated in 1834. He was ordained a minister of the Unitarian church on August 17, 1834.

After his ordination, Eliot moved to St. Louis, where he lived from 1834 to 1887. There he founded the Church of the Messiah, the first Unitarian church west of the Mississippi, which is currently called the First Unitarian Church of Saint Louis, and he remained a minister there from 1834 to 1870.

While in St. Louis, he was instrumental in the founding of many civic institutions, including the St. Louis Public Schools, the St. Louis Art Museum, Mission Free School, South Side Day Nursery, and the Western Sanitary Commission to provide medical care and supplies during the Civil War. In 1861 he was part of a small group of men who helped Generals Nathaniel Lyon and Francis P. Blair in preserving Missouri to the Union. He contributed to the development of the Colored Orphans' Home, Soldiers' Orphans' Home, Memorial Home, Blind Girls' Home, Women's Christian Home, and other charities.

He also founded, and fostered the development of educational institutions in St. Louis. He co-founded Washington University in St. Louis (initially called Eliot Seminary - much to his chagrin) in 1853, and served as its chancellor from 1870 to 1887, donating funds to its construction. He also founded Mary Institute in 1859, which is now a part of Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School, naming it for his daughter Mary, who had died young.

Among his writings are the books Doctrines of Christianity, Lectures to Young Men, Lectures to Young Women, (re-edited as Home and Influence), Discipline of Sorrow, and The Story of Archer Alexander: From Slavery to Freedom. These ranged from works of theology in the Unitarian tradition to specific moral advice to young people. He advocated individual responsibility, and in public policy women's suffrage and prohibition of alcohol.

Eliot has his own star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame, and was the grandfather of poet T. S. Eliot (1888 - 1965).

[edit] External links

Eliot family genealogy including William G. Eliot
Full text and facsimile of The Story of Archer Alexander (1863) at University of North Carolina
Facsimile of Lectures to Young Men at University of Michigan
Biographical entry at Washington University in Saint Louis

[edit] References

Eliot, Charlotte, C. 1904. William Greenleaf Eliot. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., The Riverside Press. Cambridge, MA.
Holt, Earl K. III. 1985. William Greenleaf Eliot—Conservative Radical. published by First Unitarian Church of St. Louis, St. Louis, MO.
William Greenleaf Eliot at Eliot Family Genealogy
Scott, Henry Eliot. 1988. The Family of William Greenleaf Eliot and Abby Adams Eliot, as Chronicled by their Descendants, to 1988