William G. Eliot

William Greenleaf Eliot (1811-1887), a Unitarian Minister, co-founded Washington University and was involved in many reform efforts including:

This is a large collection, and only a portion is in digital form.
  Please contact Special Collections if you need help locating additional documents.

Brief Bio:
Born August 5, 1811 in New Bedford, Massachusetts, William Greenleaf Eliot attended the Friends Academy, and later continued his education at Colombian College in Washington, D.C. In 1831 he entered the Cambridge Divinity School, and on August 17, 1834 he was ordained a Unitarian minister in Boston. In 1834 he went to St. Louis as a missionary, and became the first Unitarian minister west of the Mississippi. Eliot spent the remainder of his life in St. Louis. He established many Unitarian Churches throughout the Mississippi Valley. Eliot quickly became interested in education..

Eliot led in the efforts to establish and strengthen the St. Louis Public School System. In 1853 Wayman Crow, a friend of Eliot's, secured a charter for a proposed college to be named Eliot Seminary, (later named Washington University). From that time, Eliot was heavily involved with the development of the University . In 1870 Eliot assumed the Chancellorship, which he held until his death.

Prior to the Civil War, Eliot was a moderate abolitionist and when the war broke out he came out strongly in favor of union and emancipation. With friend, James B. Yeatman, he helped create the Western Sanitary Commission that mitigated to the medical and spiritual needs of all afflicted by the Civil War, both union and confederate, throughout the Mississippi Valley. After the war Eliot became increasingly active in reform and benevolent movements such as temperance and women's rights. Eliot died in 1887, a figure of influence in the cultural and education development of St. Louis, and of national prominence in social reform and a man respected by his fellow Unitarians.

All ten of Eliot's daily journals are available in digital format.  Work to transcribe these handwritten pages is on-going.  Some topics (not comprehensive) found in the notebook is cross noted in the collection finding aid, and this may assist searching the handwritten pages  Please inquire with Archives Staff for assistance.  Note - if you encounter any technical problems accessing these on-line images please contact University Archives spec@wumail.wustl.edu

Digitized as part of the St. Louis Civil War Digitization Project, a selection of example documents are linked below. Many include searchable text transcripts of the original handwritten doncuments:

Other collections at University Archives:

Published works: