Jared Eliot
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Jared Eliot | |
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| Born | 7 November 1685  |
| Died | 22 April 1763 (aged 77) |
| Alma mater | |
| Occupation | Minister |
| Parent(s) |
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Jared Eliot (November 7, 1685 – April 22, 1763)[1] was an American colonial scientist, minister, and physician.[2] He was born in Guilford, Connecticut, but spent most of his life from 1707 until his death in Killingsworth, now called Clinton, Connecticut. He was a botanist and agronomist who wrote articles on agriculture and animal husbandry as well as a geologist who wrote on the mineral qualities of Connecticut lands, winning recognition in England, where he was given a gold medal by the Royal Society of Arts and unanimously elected a member of the Royal Society.[3] He was considered "the first physician of his day in Connecticut and was the last clerical physician of eminence probably in New England."[4] He was a Yale Trustee from September 1730 until his death, the first Yale graduate to hold that office.[3]
Eliot's grandfather, John Eliot of Roxbury, Massachusetts,[5] was a missionary to the Massachusett and Wampanoag nations for 40 years who translated the Bible into the Natick language.[6] Jared's father, Joseph Eliot, graduated from Harvard College in 1658. He became the Congregational church minister in Guilford, Connecticut in 1664,[7] and lived there the rest of his life. Joseph was also regarded as a "clerical physician," due to his interest in medicine. Eliot was the eldest son of Joseph Eliot and his second wife, Mary Wyllys.
In 1700, there was considerable interest in establishing a college in Connecticut.[8] The ministers along the shore of Long Island Sound who originated plans for the college began to arrange a meeting of the ecclesiastical General Assembly. The Assembly agreed to meet in October and was asked to create a new charter (the previous charter had expired, along with the Massachusetts Bay Colony).[9] The college advocates stated their initial intentions by the sending of letters. The purpose of these letters was to seek advice “not only on the educational side, but on the highly important matter of the legality of a Connecticut-Colony-granted charter, and if that were to be legal, what should it contain”.[10] Joseph Eliot was among those chosen to devise the charter, including its “powers of conferring degrees as unobtrusive as possible”.[11] The Assembly felt that licensing the new college would not provoke animosity in England. Joseph's voice on behalf of Connecticut was significant to his fellow colonists until his unexpected, early death on May 24, 1694.[12]
Family
Jared's family tree – beginning with his grandfather John Eliot and his wife Hannah – is extensive, with several children from each marriage. John and Hannah Eliot had six children. Their first two children were named after them; Hannah was the firstborn, followed by John. Joseph was born on December 20, 1638. Next was Samuel (born June 22, 1641); however, he died shortly after receiving his advanced degree from Harvard in the 1660s. Aaron, the fifth-born, died at age 11. The youngest child was Benjamin; born in January 1647, he graduated from Harvard and became his father's assistant in teaching the Indians.[13]
Joseph was married twice and fathered four children from each marriage. Joseph first married Sarah, daughter of William and Martha (Burton) Brenton of Rhode Island, in 1676. All of the children borne by Sarah were girls (Mehitabel, Ann, Jemima and Barsheba), and all four daughters married well. Joseph's second marriage was to Mary Wyllys, and Jared was the firstborn of the second marriage; his younger siblings were Mary, Rebecca and Abiel. Both Mary and Rebecca married several times – Mary four times; her last husband was Samuel Hooker of Farmington, Connecticut. Rebecca married three times; her last husband was Capt. William Dudley of North Guilford, Connecticut.[14]
Jared had a difficult childhood, since his father died when he was only eight years old.[7] Since Jared's father and grandfather had both been physicians, he took up the practice.[15] Jared also became a minister, in accordance with his father's dying wish. He determined to live a successful life, to preserve his family's reputation; one of his goals was to “obtain a liberal education in ‘an academic course of studies’”.[7]
Early life and career
Abraham Pierson was a mentor for Eliot. Pierson had graduated from Harvard University in 1668, was ordained by his father Abraham Pierson, the elder, and became minister of the Killingworth Congregational Church in 1694. When he became minister at Killingworth, Pierson began teaching his first classes in the parsonage. He taught in a meeting-house in Killingworth in 1700;[16] this collegiate school is now part of Yale University. Since Pierson was an experienced minister he fell under the purview of the new charter of 1701 which stipulated that the college’s trustees were to be experienced ministers (preferably Congregationalists), residing in the colony.[17] The charter also stated that the mission of the school was the “instruction of youth ‘in the arts and sciences,’ that they might be suitable for ‘public employment, both in church and civil state’”.[18]
Eliot was one of Pierson’s favorite (and best-known) students.[19] Eliot graduated from the Collegiate School (later known as Yale College) in 1706.[20] Due to Jared's intelligence and education, Pierson predicted that he (and Samuel Cooke, another student) would become Yale school trustees; Eliot did so in 1730.[16][21][22] In June 1707, Eliot was notified of Pierson’s death; he was ordained on the first of that month, fulfilling his father's wish for one of his sons to become a minister. In September, Jared became the third minister of the Killingworth church. When he assumed the position, the colonists promised that if he were to marry they would give him 60 loads of good firewood each winter.[23] Jared married Hannah Smithson (daughter of Samuel Smithson of Brayfield, England) the following winter,[24] and was minister at the Killingworth church until his death.
In addition to his ministerial duties, Eliot was a physician; he is quoted in an article by Rodney True that “it seems natural that the medical and ministerial professions should be thus combined”.[25] A physician and a minister would be able to heal a person's body, mind and soul; a person combining both professions was known as a "clerical physician", as his father had been. Jared entered the medical profession in 1706, when there were 30 towns in New England with populations over 20,000.[26] His dual role is attested; “it should not be surprising that both great names in Connecticut medicine in the century spanning 1650-1750 belong to the cleric-physicians Gershom Bulkeley and Jared Eliot”.[27] Eliot succeeded Bulkeley as a leader in Connecticut medicine, training about 50 students.[28] He was for a time a slave owner.[29] Eliot's successor as a physician was his son-in-law Benjamin Gale, who received Jared's practice in the mid-1740s.[30] Benjamin was also a skilled physician, with a good reputation, and promoted matters of public welfare.
