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ELLIOTT is an old border name,
and its bearers have been prominent since the sixteenth
century in every walk of life, and send an Elliott" was the call when any
difficult problem agitated the government. Hence, the great part played by
the Elliott family in British Colonial affairs, and the notable men who
have borne the name in the United States from the earliest times.
Samuel Elliott was born seventy-two
years ago in Annandale,
Dumfriesshire, the fourth son of John and Jean Johnstone Elliott, where
and in the adjoining counties of Roxburgh and Selkirk, the Elliotts and
the Johnstones have been well-known for generations. One of twelve
children, he received a liberal education, and when not quite twenty left
home for the United States. His first engagement in New York was
with the old house of Harper & Bros.,
where he acquired a general knowledge of the publishing business, and in
his spare hours exercised his hand at reporting and writing for New York
newspapers.
In the year 1870, he removed to
Chicago, to accept a responsible position with the large publishing house
of S. C. Griggs & Co., where he remained until the great fire of 1871 laid
the city in ashes. Meanwhile, he took up the study of law and also the
scientific and actuarial side of life insurance, writing on these and
kindred subjects for various Chicago journals. About this time the
proprietors of The Spectator,
then a newly established
magazine devoted to the interests of insurance, sought the services of Mr.
Elliott, and on the removal of its main office to New York, he assumed the
sole management in Chicago.
When, in 1873, the
Daily Graphic. the first daily
illustrated newspaper ever published, was started in New York, he was
invited to join in the undertaking, and for upwards of seven years was
associate manager of the Graphic Company. Soon after retiring from that
position he became actively interested in mining operations in Mexico and
in railway construction and various other projects in the State of
Washington, and has devoted the main part of his business career to those
lines. In 1884, he acquired a proprietary interest in The Spectator,
which has long been recognized as the most successful and influential
insurance journal published, while The Spectator Company, of which Mr.
Elliott was successively Treasurer. Vice-President and for twenty years
President, has earned a world-wide reputation as publishers of standard
insurance text-books and insurance literature of every kind. On
relinquishing the presidency of the company, he disposed of his interest
in the business to his associates, but still continues a
member of the Board of Directors.
Mr. Elliott has been actively
associated with many philanthropic and educational movements both in
Scotland and America. As Chairman of the American Executive Committee, in
1906, he organized and directed the movement in the United States which
raised a large proportion of the money for
the purchase of Carlyle’s House, Chelsea,
London, and has been a member of the Carlyle House Memorial Trust since
its foundation. When it was proposed to endow a chair of Scottish History
in the University of Glasgow, he promptly organized an American Committee,
through which a generous contribution was
secured toward its foundation. A
characteristic benefaction was Mr. Elliott’s
gift
of $2,500 to found the Laurence Hutton Prize Fund at Princeton University.
Mr. Hutton, who was of Scotch descent, for nearly half a century filled a
unique place in the literary and social life of New York, and rounded out
his career as a lecturer on English literature in Princeton. Endeared to
everyone who knew him, Laurence Hutton was the intimate friend of Mr.
Elliott, who by the unusual act of providing a scholarship to another ‘s
memory has paid a tribute at the same time to Scotch worth, and to the
noblest sentiment of friendship.
Mr. Elliott, in 1908, was elected President of the
Glasgow-Dumfriesshire Society, an old association composed of
distinguished men of Border ancestry residing mainly in Glasgow, and of
which he has been a life member for many years. He is a life member of the
St. Andrew’s Society of New York, and for a number of years served as
Vice-President and a Manager. He is also a life member of the American
Geographical Society, the American Museum of Natural History, and of the
New York Zoological Society. He is a member of the New York Chamber of
Commerce, the Metropolitan Museum of Art; also of the
Metropolitan Club, the Grolier Club, the Players’ Club, and the Pilgrims
of America.
Mr. Elliott has for more than twenty years occupied
apartments on Fifth Avenue, New York, where he is surrounded by a choice
collection of rare books and many other treasures. He has a large circle
of friends, both in this country and abroad, usually spending the summer
months in Scotland or elsewhere in Europe. A few years ago he made a
journey around the world, which forms one of the most interesting and
stirring experiences of his life. Though a loyal Scotchman, Mr. Elliott
has long been a naturalized citizen of the United States. |
