William Greenleaf Eliot, minister, educator, philanthropist

Front matter

BY

CHAKLOTTE C. ELIOT

u

Contents

CHAPTEB PAGE

Introduction . xv

I. Early Life . . . . . . . 1

Introduction

Just seventy years ago there appeared in the city of St. Louis a minister, twenty-three years old, whose subsequent career was sufficiently remarkable to make it fitting that it should be written down. Of New England birth but reared in Washington, D. C, he returned as maturity approached to New England to complete his education. Then, fresh from the Harvard Divinity School, he took up his life-work as the first exponent of the Unitarian views west of the Mississippi. Through both father and mother he came of honorable lineage ; his brothers and sisters were persons useful and distinguished ; his own career from the first was worthy of such antecedents and relationships.

Dr. William Greenleaf Eliot was for thirtynine years pastor of the Church of the Messiah in St. Louis, a pastorate remarkably successful. Aside from his ministrations to his flock, he made his influence felt in the community in many ways. Few projects of moment, having in view the elevation of society, could in that time be named, of which he was not the originator or an effective helper from the start. He was the friend of the poor and oppressed of every land and xvi

INTRODUCTION complexion, in particular of the negro. Under slavery he mitigated, so far as his great influence extended, the hard lot of the blacks. Though having no part with the extremists who declared the Constitution of the United States to be " a covenant with death and an agreement with hell," he was actively anti-slavery, and from the outbreak of the Civil War was zealously loyal. In the Western Sanitary Commission, which came into existence through his suggestion, he was always a leader in collecting and applying the millions which flowed through its channels to the relief of the soldiers in the field. His youngest brother, a gallant officer, was killed at Chancellorsville at the head of his men. His brother Thomas, in Congress, became conspicuous for wisdom and abiHty in the difficult time of reconstruction. WilHam, in Missouri, played a part not less honorable and important in carrying through the struggle and in bringing to pass afterward a proper settlement. Lincoln and his cabinet officers and generals received his advice with respect.

In particular. Dr. Eliot's interest was great in education. The first free school west of the Mississippi was begun under his direction, and no one deserves more than he to be regarded as the father of the pubHc school system in Missouri. Washington University, a cluster of educational institutions conceived after the broadest standard, containing at the present moment thousands

INTRODUCTION xvii of pupils, provided with structures among the finest in the world, and possessing an endowment of several millions, came into existence through the efforts of the group of men of whom Dr. EKot was the centre and inspiration. He was president of the board of directors of Washington University from its establishment; and in 1873, having resigned his pastorate of the Church of the Messiah, he became its chancellor. Henceforth, until his strength failed, he gave himself up mainly to the direction of the institution, showing always a rare wisdom and devotedness. Dr. Eliot was perhaps over-ready to sacrifice the interests of individuals in furtherino^ the welfare of institutions and causes which he deemed important, but he always laid himself first upon the altar. Full himself of the spirit of seK-sacrifice, he demanded it from others, and remarkable indeed was the consecration to high ends of means and energies brought to pass through incitements proceeding from him. In particular he was zealous for his university. For this he well-nigh impoverished himself, while at the same moment giving his time and powers unremittingly to its administration. If it stands to-day magnificently appointed, abounding in endowments, sought by thousands of pupils, a culmination of sweetness and light, let not the man be forgotten who laid its corner-stone and watched over its small beginnings. Of all the worthies of early New England, xviii

INTRODUCTION not one possesses so brilliant and desirable a fame as the young minister who, by a bequest of £400 and his library of two hundred and sixty volumes to a school struggling into life, associated his name forever with our proudest seat of learning. What John Harvard did for Cambridge bears no comparison with what William G. Eliot did for Washington University. The moneyed gift of the latter was much more than fifty-fold that of the early dying Charlestown pastor, even measured by the changed standards of the present day ; and there was, besides, the faithful service during the period of a generation. The present writer remembers hearing General W. T. Sherman, for many years the friend of Dr. Eliot, and cognizant of his great work, express regret that the university did not bear his name. Others have felt the same regret. It would be at any rate the height of injustice if his service to it were overlaid and forgotten ; and it is a subject for rejoicing that the detailed story of his work for Washington University, as also of his other work, now at last finds a proper presentment in the excellent book which follows.

Dr. Eliot was a man of quite unusual versatility. He attained eminence as a preacher and educational organizer. The fine literary finish of everything he wrote makes it certain that, had he so chosen, he might have succeeded as an

INTKODUCTION xix author. In affairs he was full of enterprise and possessed excellent judgment. " If I could have had Dr. Eliot for a partner/' said an able man of business once, " we should have made most of the money west of the Alleghanies." He possessed, moreover, a certain firmness of will, quickness of perception, self-reliance and balance, that no circumstances could disturb, and, withal, a dauntless courage, which, had fate so willed it, might have made him a brilliant soldier.

Dr. Eliot was short of stature and of delicate frame. For many years his work was done in the midst of constant suffering. The contrast was almost pathetic between the smallness of his physical resources and the magnitude of the enterprises which he dared to undertake. But there was no inadequacy. His conquering spirit sustained and supplemented everywhere his feeble body. Every important work to which he put his hand was carried throug-h to success. This activity, so long-continued, so effective, so beneficent, has waited long for its record. Now that the record appears, it should meet with a warm welcome.

James K. Hosmer.

Chapter I

In the year 1812, New Bedford was a seaport town with a foreign trade, extensive for that period. Its commercial prosperity, however, received a sudden check from the embargo on American shipping, a result of the war between England and America. Trading vessels lay idle in the harbor, a losing investment for their unfortunate owners.

Among those who thus suffered great financial loss was William Greenleaf Eliot, merchant and shipowner, then a young man thirty-one years of age. In 1807 he had married his cousin Margaret Dawes, ten years his junior, and had settled with his young wife in New Bedford, as their future home. In 1812 he was the father of three children, of whom the youngest, William Greenleaf Eliot, Jr., had been born the previous year, August 5, 1811.

At the beginning of his married life William Eliot, Senior, had every reason to look forward to a prosperous business career in New Bedford, but when reverses of fortune came he bore them with religious fortitude and philosophic resignation, neither subdued nor discouraged. He resolved to seek elsewhere some new avenue of employment, and removed with his family to Baltimore. From there he later went to Washington, D. C, in which city he received an appointment as chief examiner in the auditing office of the Postal Department, a position which he retained for thirty-five consecutive years.

From both parents, and a more remote ancestry, William G. Eliot, Jr., inherited decided traits of character. His great-grandfather. Rev. Andrew Eliot, pastor of the old North Church in Boston, was an earnest and zealous minister, possessing strong convictions of duty, and keenly alive to the responsibilities of his calling. When offered the presidency of Harvard College, he refused the appointment, believing it wrong to relinquish his vocation for any other, however honorable.

Samuel Eliot, the son of Andrew and grandfather of William G. Eliot, Jr., was a young man of great promise, who died at the early age of thirty-six years, leaving a wife and five children.

Margaret Dawes Eliot, mother of William G. Eliot, Jr., was a woman of strong intellect and unusual force of character. She belonged to a family conspicuous in the early annals of Boston.

Her grandfather. Colonel Thomas Dawes, was always active in public affairs. He filled in turn the offices of representative, senator, and councilor in Massachusetts. He was considered one of the first great mechanics of Boston, being by trade a mason, which at that period seemed to represent a combination of architect, builder, and mason. As architect of the Brattle Street Church, he laid the corner-stone, and did half the mason work in addition to designing the building. He was also supervising architect of the State House. It was said of him that "he was a high patriot," and the Tories nicknamed him in derision " J onathan Smoothing Plane." He took so conspicuous a part in the early events of the Revolution that he became obnoxious to the royalists, and his house on Purchase Street was sacked by the British troops before they left Boston.

In 1786 he was one of the deacons of the Old South Church, and his "venerable appearance, grave deportment, rich dress, and silver locks " are said to have given him an impressive appearance as he walked up the broad aisle every Sunday. A curious epitaph on his monument at King's Chapel thus begins : —

" Of his taste for the Grecian simplicity In architecture there are many monuments Which he raised when that art was new to us."

Judge Thomas Dawes, son of Colonel Thomas Dawes, Senior, and grandfather of William G.

Eliot, Jr., sat for ten years, from 1792 to 1802, on the bench of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. From 1802 to 1825, when he " died full of honors," he was Judge of Probate. He also sat for twenty years on the municipal bench of Boston. In an account given of him in a book entitled " Boston Orators," he is described as " a small man, but very eloquent." It is related of him that, on one occasion being present at a gathering where there were many large men, he was asked how he felt. " Like a silver shilhng among copper pennies," he quickly ansAvered.

Through two lines of descent William Greenleaf Eliot, Jr., was a great-grandson of WiUiam Greenleaf, one of whose daughters married Samuel Eliot, and another Thomas Dawes, Jr. A third daughter married Judge William Cranch, the future father-in-law of William Eliot, Jr. The Greenleafs were a Huguenot family, who emigrated from France to England, and thence to America.

WilHam Greenleaf, a stanch Whig, was appointed sheriff of Suffolk County, including Boston, in 1775. He succeeded his elder brother, who was a Tory. As sheriff of Boston, it was his duty to read the Declaration of Independence, from the balcony of the old State House, in July, 1776. On this joyful occasion "the beUs of the town were rung," and every sign that belonged to a Tory taken down for a general conflagration on King Street, now State Street. Judge William Cranch told his family that on that day his cousin, John Quincy Adams, and he, then boys of nine and seven years of age, were playing in the garden of their residence near by. Hearing the noise in the street, they ran out barefooted as they were, to see what was going on. When in the crowd, some men lifted them up that they might see and hear. Judge Cranch said that Wilham Greenleaf, the high sheriff of Suffolk County, began to read the Declaration of Independence. The people cried out that he must read louder. He raised his voice, but the cry was repeated : " Read louder ! louder ! " and he then handed the paper to Colonel Thomas Crafts, who had a strong, powerful voice.

William Cranch, this same boy of seven, was in the lapse of time to marry the daughter of WilHam Greenleaf.

Active in public affairs, interested in the common weal, good citizens and men of unblemished character, the ancestors of William Greenleaf Eliot, Jr., left to their descendants a nobler heritage than riches.

When ¥/illiam G. Eliot, Senior, removed to

ashington, it was to spend there the remaining measure of his days. He resigned his office under the government, April, 1853, stating that he felt " the infirmities of age pressing so heavily" upon him as to "make it proper to retire to private life." He was then seventy-two years of age, and died in December of that same year, a few days before his seventy-third birthday. Of his family of eight children, three sons and three daughters lived to mature age.

After his early reverses of fortune, he was never a wealthy man. With some self-sacrifice on his own and his wife's part, he gave to his children all the advantages of education that could be procured, Mrs. Eliot herself aiding in their instruction. Theirs was a household in which the accidents of wealth were not missed, so long as there remained the essential elements of mental and spiritual progress, — books, education, social intercourse, and the inspiration of noble ideals.

Home influences tended to enhance the natural earnestness of disposition which was always a predominant trait in the character of William G. Eliot, Jr. In his boyhood he was sent to New Bedford because of its educational advantages, and there attended the Friends' Academy. One of his schoolmates, referring to his school days there, wrote: "His influence was felt in the whole school, young as he was. He had great earnestness as well as dignity. He appeared more advanced in every way than other boys, and yet there never was sweeter hilarity and joy. He was as eager to help us in our May-day festivals given in the woods, as he was devoted to study. His manners were as formed then as in later years. None ever felt the rude boy."

Columbian College, of Washington, D. received its charter from Congress in 1821. An old certificate of scholarship, yellow with age, certifies that there was received of William G. Eliot one hundred and thirty-four dollars and sixteen cents, principal and interest on this certificate. This entitled the subscriber to " twenty collegiate years' tuition." Truly a generous return for a small outlay ! From the indorsements on the back of the certificate of William G. EHot, Senior, we find that his eldest son, Thomas Dawes Eliot, received tuition at the college from 1823 until the close of 1825, and William Greenleaf Eliot, Jr., from 1826 until 1830, when he graduated.

For one year after graduation William G. Eliot, Jr., was employed in the Postal Department at Washington, D. C, serving as assistant clerk in the chief examiner's room. In an address, delivered nearly half a century later, he related a curious circumstance which seems to have first awakened in him the desire to make St. Louis his future home. He stated that, during this period of his clerkship in Washington, whenever he opened the quarterly returns from St. Louis, " carefully served up in a doeskin by Wilson P. Hunt, postmaster," he was accustomed to read the Missouri " Republican " containing the dead-letter list, and determined that if ever he went West, St. Louis would be the resting place.

In 1831 Mr. Eliot entered the Cambridge Divinity School as a student. So fitting in his case seemed this choice of a profession, that it would be difficult to imagine an alternative. His parents approved of his desire to enter the ministry, and his father thus wrote to him soon after he reached Cambridge : " I rejoice more and more that your choice of a profession is what it is. I am sure your prospect of happiness in this life is greater than it could be in any other profession, and as it has been made voluntarily, and from conviction, I am sure you never will regret it."

The three years spent at the Cambridge Divinity School seem to have been a period of almost unalloyed happiness. Congenial pursuits, the companionship of fellow-students having the same interests, and the delightful social intercourse of Cambridge and Boston, were keenly enjoyed. Between William Greenleaf Eliot and J ames Freeman Clarke, one year his senior, there was formed one of those friendships, as rare as they are beautiful, which are founded on mutual love, esteem, and respect, and continue throughout life. James Freeman Clarke graduated one year in advance of his younger friend, and settled in Louisville, Kentucky. A correspondence then began, frequent for the first few years, and lasting, with longer intervals between the letters, throughout the lifetime of William Eliot. These letters of his friend, Mr. Clarke once characterized as " affectionate, playful, wise, and tender." Each of the two men carefully preserved the letters of the other, but so intimate was the relation between them, so unreservedly did each express to the other his inmost thoughts, his spiritual doubts, his hopes and aspirations, that we almost shrink from reading this revelation of one soul to another. Especially is this true of the earlier correspondence.

Of their student life while at the divinity school. Dr. Clarke thus spoke in a memorial sermon, delivered after the death of Dr. Eliot : " Wilham Henry Channing, William Greenleaf Eliot, and I saw each other every day, and our conversation was on the most important themes. Wilham Eliot was more practical, William Channing more ideal. Like all sincere souls, each of these men valued in the other that in which the other excelled himself. Already devoted to all philanthropies, William EHot sometimes condemned that I should think it worth while to read as much as I then did of German poetry and philosophy. His own time was largely occupied in visiting the poor and the prisoners, and in examining the working of asylums and hospitals. . . . But his power of self-judgment and self -adjustment showed itself even in this; for one day he asked me to give him some profound work of German philosophy to read, ' for/ said he, ' I need to balance all this external work with some hard study.' I suggested Fichte's ' Bestimmung des Menschen ' (Destiny of Man), which I had just read. He went through it in the same exhaustive way in which he did everything, making himself master of the argument, and some years after he told me he thought that was about the best thing he did in the divinity school. In a letter written to me from Cambridge, in 1833, he says, ' You cannot tell how much I feel the need of deep, abstract study. I feel drawn as by a strong cord to German. I am now reading Fichte's sun-clear account of his system. English books seem too much on the surface, while principles are what my nature craves.' He saw that there is nothing more practical than life fed from deep thought."

At this period William Eliot was much interested in German philosophy. He wrote to Mr. Clarke again : " I am reading Madame de Stael on German philosophy. I am delighted with it. German philosophy is the bugbear of oar firesides, and is almost another name for infidelity ; yet if the learned are ever redeemed from skepticism, it must be by its influence. The foundations of my religion are tenfold stronger than they were a year since, and I feel that I stand on a rock. My earnest prayer is that German literature and science may have free course among us."

In 1833-34, William Eliot read Goethe extensively, both in the original and translations. " Wilhelm Meister," especially, he read and re-read several times, declaring that he was enraptured with it. Herein he showed his humanitarian bias, for what most delighted him in the book was the wonderful knowledge of human nature in all its phases and modifications, — the perfect development in Wilhelm of the spiritual philosophy." For every sentiment expressed in the book, he " found some response in himself," although he acknowledges that his opinion of Goethe is rather mixed, on account of the frequent appearance of sensual tendencies and feehngs. " Yet," he exclaims, " why find partial and perhaps unfounded faults where there is so much to admire? It is a great book. How famihar is its author with the most undefined shades of human thought, and the secret workings of the religious heart, and the early dawning and the gradual growth of the spiritual and divine in the soul."

The philosophy of Goethe, William Eliot did not always find congenial with his feelings. There was occasionally something akin to "practical atheism," a " sort of chance or fate," which, although it might not be a part of his philosophy, could not be altogether foreign from his, Goethe' s^ mind.

Nothing is more characteristic of William Eliot's work as a student than his desire to discover and accept truth wherever found. Yet always with discrimination he tried to separate the tares from the wheat, the true from the false, and remain steadfast in his central religious convictions. To Mr. Clarke, in 1833, he thus wrote :

The longer I live, every additional day, I see more of the importance of a real faith in the existence of truth. I have come to the decided opinion that there is one Philosophy, one Eeligion. What they are, God only knows. Every consideration leads me to think that there is one stream of truth, which is from and to eternity, deep, pure, and spiritual — to which every soul tends, and will reach sooner or later. It is this behef which is of the essence of religious faith, for he who recognizes the existence of anything permanent and spiritual must be religious."

Among so many systems of philosophy, amid so much theory and speculation, where shall truth be sought and found? William Eliot thus expresses the conclusion at which he has arrived : " For my own part, I believe the path of duty, in its widest sense of religion, of usefulness, is the very path which soonest leads to the love and perception of truth."

For William Eliot, who had already decided to be an evangelist, a missionary, this " path of duty " was to lead to what was then a distant outpost of civilization, away from the world of books, and removed from the sympathetic intercourse of his fellow-workers in the Unitarian denomination. He loved these things not less than other men, but his Christian zeal, his desire to do good, led him where he was most needed. Who can say that for him the path of duty was not the path which soonest led to the love and perception of truth ?

Among William Eliot's friends at Cambridge was included the revered and beloved Henry Ware, teacher, counselor, and friend. Dr. Channing was then pastor of the Federal Street Church, which Mr. Eliot must have attended, since he later referred to him as his minister. He regarded Dr. Channing with great reverence and affection, and seems to have been strongly influenced by him in his early religious views. He was also much attached to Dr. Channing's colleague. Dr. Gannett.

William Eliot always found a welcome awaiting him in the hospitable home of Dr. James Freeman at Newton. Of this home Dr. De Normandie said that it was a home of " intellectual activity, of human interests, and of a spiritual atmosphere," all of which made it most congenial and attractive for a young man who thirsted for the sympathy he there found.

Other friends there were, among them Margaret Fuller, whom Mr. Eliot greatly admired. He wrote to his friend Mr. Clarke that he had spent a delightful evening in conversation with her, and again he referred to her as being " as witty and intellectual as ever."

The first sermon which William Eliot delivered in his course at the divinity school was characteristic of his future work, for the subject was "Philanthropy." He wrote Mr. Clarke that he had the assurance to preach to the school " as if they had been any one else." He added that, " having come to the conclusion that we should do all we can and sacrifice everything," he " left them to their reflections."

While at the divinity school Mr. Eliot decided to begin his ministry at some distant point, probably in the West. This desire was increased when in 1833 his friend Mr. Clarke was settled over the Unitarian Church at Louisville, Kentucky. William Henry Channing seems to have considered going to St. Louis, but decided against it. This action William Eliot deplored. In August, 1833, he wrote to Mr. Clarke : " I wish you would tell me something of what the prospect in the West is for us young, ambitious preachers. Is it on the whole a good field for useful labor ? I hear that at St. Louis a parish is getting together ; is it true, and what about it ? " Again, in December he wrote : " Next Christmas I shall spend in the North, South, East, or West — God knows ! I wish it might happen to be in your vicinity. If you will remain at Louisville, I will come to

St. Louis, or some nearer place." In those days of travel by stage-coach, or along- streams obstructed by sand-bars, St. Louis was much more distant from Boston than is London now, counting by the time required to make the journey. It is evident that William Eliot realized the sacrifice involved in going there, for he again wrote to Mr. Clarke in February : " What matters it if the few years of life be spent in cities or in a wilderness. ... I am doubtful, but very decided. ... I must know more what is the prospect of success — what the character of the people — the probable number of Unitarians to begin with — the peculiar discouragements, etc. . . . Say decidedly ^ You can succeed, — you have the requisite ability,' and if I know myself, I will come. The self-sacrifice, though it sometimes comes over one like a cold hand on the heart, in general means nothing at all. Let them know in some way that a youngster is ready to come there to live, to spend his life among them if they will provide food and lodging — for if I come, I come to remain, and to lay my ashes in the valley of the Mississippi."

Two weeks later he again wrote : " When I look at those youths who are candidating hereabouts, the bare possibility of my becoming one of them is a strong jog like a voice : ' Arise ! Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred to a land that I shall show thee.' Mr. Ware has said that he thinks me well suited to the task of pioneering, and for myself I believe my mind is made up. I have written home to the like effect, and am expecting letters of condolence ; they will more probably be of encouragement, for my parents are not of a sort to stand in the way of even a youthful and enthusiastic project of usefulness."

The answer came in a letter from his father, dated March 18. He acquiesced in his son's decision, as was to have been expected, although he did not entirely approve. " I would rather," he wrote, " if circumstances permit, have you remain in Cambridge another year. ... I can see that there would be some advantage to you in having you depend entirely on your own mental resources, but before drawing on them so liberally as you would be obliged to do in the far West, you should have a good stock provided. In that new country you would want counselors and a library, and your labors would be very heavy. ... I would have you weigh the matter well, consult friends who can assist your judgment, and pray for assistance from above, and my son, whatever your final determination in the matter may be, I shall bid you Godspeed, and will in every way give you assistance."

In his ultimate decision William Eliot, Jr., received the blessing of his parents, if not their entire approval. To the enthusiasm of youth, difficulties seem and are less insurmountable than they appear to the cooler judgment of age. From a letter to Mr. Clarke, however, it is evident that the young divinity student had begun more fully to realize what was before him. He wrote : " To-day I have had conversation with Mr. Goodwin, who was in St. Louis, and he gives me encouragement to go. He says I shall find society enough to be happy in, and that it depends on me whether I succeed or not. There are enough to begin with who are ready to do what they can to support a Unitarian minister, but the arduousness of the situation is greater than I thought, if the society there is so mixed. I think I shall go, but am anxious to learn more."