Origins

The family's paternal ancestors emigrated from East Coker, Somerset, England. All family members descend from two men, both named Andrew Eliot, father and son, who emigrated from England to Beverly, Massachusetts between 1668 and 1670. The elder Andrew (1627 - March 1, 1704) served the town and colony in a number of positions and in 1692 was chosen as a juror in the Salem witch trials. His son Andrew (1651 - September 12, 1688) married Mercy Shattuck in 1680 in Beverly and died by drowning after falling off a ship.

The poet T. S. Eliot, who spent much of his life in England, titled the poem East Coker after the village of the family's origin. Upon his death, his ashes were interred in St Michael and All Angels' Church in East Coker, the birthplace of his Eliot ancestors.

Rise to prominence

Members of the Eliot family achieved success in a myriad of fields, including banking, politics, academia, and the arts. Samuel Eliot, born to modest circumstances, built one of the largest fortunes in Boston.^[2] His granddaughter, Mary Elizabeth Bray, married Johann Heinrich Gossler III, whose family owned Berenberg Bank; their descendants would be barons, senators, and consuls in Europe.

Charles W. Eliot's tenure as President of Harvard was monumental, leading Theodore Roosevelt to refer to him as "the only man in the world I envy."^[3] Branches of the family migrated westward, and were instrumental in the founding of Washington University in St. Louis and Reed College.

Thomas Stearns Eliot, better known as T. S. Eliot, was awarded the 1948 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Throughout the 20th century, Martha May Eliot, Abigail Adams Eliot, and Clara Eliot achieved prominence in the fields of public health, early childhood education, and economics, respectively.

Other families with the surname Eliot

A number of Americans who share the last name Eliot descend from Reverend John Eliot of Roxbury, Massachusetts, a Puritan missionary known as the "Apostle to the Indians." These include the Reverend John Eliot's son John Eliot, Jr., who served as the first pastor of the First Church of Christ in Newton, Massachusetts, Joseph Eliot, a pastor in Guilford, Connecticut, and Joseph's son Jared Eliot, a pastor and agricultural writer. As Henry James noted in his biography of Charles W. Eliot, no connection has been traced between the two families.^[2]

Arts, architecture, and literature

• Charles Eliot, landscape architect
• Charles Eliot Norton, scholar and man of letters
• Samuel Atkins Eliot, Jr., novelist, son of Samuel Atkins Eliot II
• Theodore Lyman Eliot I, president of San Francisco Art Institute and brother-in-law of Navy Commander Albert Bigelow, the peace activist
• Thomas Stearns Eliot (better known as T. S. Eliot), Nobel laureate, poet, playwright, literary critic and publisher

Business and banking

• Henry Ware Eliot, businessman and President of the Academy of Science, St. Louis
• Samuel Eliot, Boston banker and merchant, President of Massachusetts Bank, one of the richest men in Boston

Education and academia

• Charles William Eliot, President of Harvard University
• Clara Eliot, economist at Barnard College
• Ida M. Eliot, writer, educator, philosopher, and entomologist
• John Eliot, co-founder of the Massachusetts Historical Society with Jeremy Belknap, the first such historical society of its kind
• Samuel Eliot, historian, educator, trustee of Massachusetts General Hospital, Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Massachusetts Historical Society
• Samuel Eliot Morison, historian, Rear Admiral, United States Naval Reserve
• Rev. Thomas Lamb Eliot, seminal in the founding of Reed College where he served as Regent and Trustee
• William Greenleaf Eliot, co-founder and third Chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis

Politics and diplomacy

• Andrew Eliot Rice, key force behind the creation of the Peace Corps and founder of the Society for International Development
• Samuel Atkins Eliot, Senator, Mayor of Boston, Treasurer of Harvard University, served in the United States House of Representatives, Massachusetts House of Representatives, and Massachusetts Senate
• Thomas Dawes Eliot, U.S. Congressman from Massachusetts, brother of William Greenleaf Eliot
• Thomas H. Eliot, Chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis (1962 - 1971), U.S. Congressman (1941 - 1943)
• Theodore Lyman Eliot II, diplomat, United States Ambassador to Afghanistan (1973–1978), Executive Secretary of the United States Department of State (1969-1973)

Religion

• Andrew Eliot, prominent Boston Congregational Minister during the Siege of Boston
• Christopher Rhodes Eliot, Unitarian minister and author
• Frederick May Eliot, President of the American Unitarian Association (1937 - 1958)
• Samuel Atkins Eliot II, President of the American Unitarian Association (1900 - 1927)

Science and medicine

• Edward Samuel Ritchie, inventor and physicist, great-grandson of Andrew Eliot, the Boston minister
• Joan R. Rosenblatt (née Joan Eliot Raup), statistician at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, daughter of Clara Eliot
• Martha May Eliot, a pediatrician and expert in public health; she served as director of the Children’s Bureau’s Division of Child and Maternal Health in the 1920s and 1930s, and is credited with drafting language on women and children in the Social Security Act. Martha May Eliot lived a quiet but public life as a lesbian with her lifelong domestic partner, Ethel Collins Dunham

Other notable figures

• Edward Cranch Eliot^[4] President of the American Bar Association