Historic leaves, volume 8, April, 1909 - January, 1910

Charles Darwin Elliot.

Family history.¹

Among Mr. Elliot's ancestors were Major Eleazer Lawrence, Lieutenant Eleazer Lawrence, Captain Jonathan Wade, Lieutenant Nicholas White, Samuel Scripture, Marshal-General Edward Mitchelson, Marshal-General John Green, John Nutting, Zachariah Flicks, and Thomas Eliot, all soldiers in the King Philip's or other Colonial wars; also, Ensign John Whitman and Samuel Champney, soldiers in the King Philip's war, and deputies to the general court; also, Rev. Nathaniel Rogers, of Ipswich, Ruling Elder Richard Champney, of Cambridge, and William Pitt, high sheriff of Bristol, Eng.

Thomas Eliot, above mentioned, was admitted a freeman of Swansea, Mass., February 22, 1669, and became a member of the Baptist church under Rev. John Myles; he was one of the proprietors of Taunton North Purchase. Of his ancestry no record has been found. He died in Rehoboth, Mass., May 23, 1700, and his wife Jane, whom he probably married about 1676 or 1677, died in Taunton, Mass., November 9, 1689. They had five children: Abigaile, Thomas, Jr., Joseph, Elizabeth, and Benjamin. Thomas, Sr., was a corporal in Captain William Turner's company in King Philip's war, in 1675 and 1676; his sword, gun, and ammunition are mentioned in the inventory of his estate. Joseph, his son, was born in Taunton March 2, 1684, and died April 21, 1752. He married, July 22, 1710, Hannah White, daughter of John White; she died March 5, 1775, aged ninety-two years. Their children were: Joseph, Jr., John, Hannah, Samuel, Nehemiah, Abigail, and Ebenezer. Nehemiah, son of Joseph, Sr., was born March 8, 1719, and died December 8, 1802; he was at one time treasurer of Norton North Precinct; he married, September 23, 1747, Mercy White, daughter of Lieutenant Nicholas White, of Norton; she was born July [54] 7, 1723, and died May 8, 1780. Their children were: Joseph, Nehemiah, Jr., Jacob, and Mercy.

Joseph, son of Nehemiah, Sr., was born in Norton June 25, 1749; he married, May 7, 1773, Joanna Morse, daughter of Elisha Morse; she was born September 17, 1751, and died December 6, 1837. Joseph Eliot was a minute-man of the Revolution, and marched at the Lexington alarm, April 20, 1775, for Boston; he served through the siege of Boston and, reenlisting, through the campaign of New York and New Jersey under General Washington, and as corporal in the Saratoga campaign under General Gates; he died of disease while in the service, December 15, 1777. C. D. Elliot had his powder horn, canteen, and bayonet, and his letters to his wife while he was in the army. The children of Joseph and Joanna (Morse) Eliot were: Joel and Hannah. Joel was born August 30, 1775, and died at Foxboro, Mass., July 23, 1864; his wife, Mary Murray (Flagg) Elliot, was born in Cambridge July 14, 1782, and died in Foxboro January 23, 1865; she was daughter of Timothy and Sarah (Hicks) Flagg, and granddaughter of John Hicks, a member of the Boston Tea Party, and one of the Cambridge minute-men ‘who fell in defence of the liberty of the people, April 19, 1775,’ in whose memory the city of Cambridge has erected a monument in the old historic burying ground near Harvard Square, where they are buried. A tablet on Massachusetts Avenue marks the spot where John Hicks and three other patriots were killed by the flank guard of the British. Joel Elliot lived for many years in Cambridge, having a store near Harvard Square; he was at one time a member of the Cambridge fire department. In 1816 he moved to Foxboro, Mass., where he became a prosperous farmer; it was he who changed the spelling of the family name from Eliot to its present form. The children of Joel and Mary M. were: Mary Joanna, Joseph, Sarah Elizabeth, Caroline, Charles Edwin, Hannah, Timothy, Joel Augustus, and Nancy Maria.

Joseph, son of Joel and Mary M. (Flagg) Elliot, and father of Charles D. Elliot, was born in Cambridge, near Harvard [55] Square, January 1, 1807, and died in Somerville, Mass., July 7, 1874. He married, at Mt. Holly, Vt., December 24, 1835, Zenora, daughter of Stephen, Jr., and Sibil (Lawrence) Tucker. He built and settled in Foxboro Centre; he moved thence to Wrentham, from there to Malden, and in 1846 to Somerville, where for fifteen years he was station agent of the Prospect Street, now Union Square, station of the Fitchburg Railroad. He was at one time a member of the Somerville fire department, and in early life of the state militia; in his early days Joseph Elliot was much interested in politics, and was offered the postmastership of Foxboro, which he declined. He was identified with the old Democratic party in its contests with the Whigs, but became a Republican upon the organization of that party, and voted its ticket the remainder of his life. When a young man he became a Universalist; he was a zealous believer, and was one of the first members of the First Universalist Society in Somerville. He had a wide acquaintance with the leaders of the faith, among them Rev. Thomas Whittemore, editor of the Trumpet, who was a frequent visitor in his home.

Zenora (Tucker) Elliot, mother of Charles D. Elliot, was born in Mt. Holly, Vt., February 10, 1809, and died while on a visit to that place October 25, 1885, in the same room in which she was married. She was educated at Randolph Academy, Mass. In early life she was a Methodist, but later a Universalist; she was much interested in religious, literary, temperance, and soldiers' relief work. She was a respected member of several organizations. Her father, Stephen Tucker, Jr., was son of Captain Stephen and Abigail (Newell) Tucker. He was born in Charlestown, Mass., February 14, 1764, and died in Mt. Holly, Vt., December 26, 1828. During the burning of Charlestown, June 17, 1775, his mother fled with her children across ‘the neck’ to Medford, constantly threatened with destruction from the British shot and shell which howled past their carriage. Stephen, Jr.'s, father was a sea captain, and was absent on a voyage at the time of the battle [56] of Bunker Hill. Stephen, Jr., married Sibil Lawrence, December 20, 1790, at Littleton, Mass. About the year 1795 or 1796 he removed to Mt. Holly, Vt., where he was for many years town clerk, selectman, and trial justice. Sibil Lawrence, daughter of Simon and Sibil (Robbins) Lawrence, was born June 10, 1770, and died April 16, 1813; in the Lawrence genealogy her ancestry is traced to John Lawrence, of Watertown, Mass., and thence by some back to Sir Robert Lawrence, of Ashton Hall, England, one of the crusaders, knighted in 1191 for bravery at the siege of Acre by Richard Coeur de Lion. Her grandfather, Lieutenant Eleazer Lawrence, was prominent in the Indian wars, and Simon, her father, was a soldier in the Revolution. The children of Joseph and Zenora Elliot were: Charles Darwin, Alfred Lawrence, and Mary Elvira.