Samuel Eliot (1739-1820)

Retail Merchant of Boston & President of the Massachusetts Bank

Having amassed one of the largest fortunes in Boston as an East India Merchant and through retail, he endowed the Eliot Chair of Greek Literature at Harvard. He was a member of the American Philosophical Society and in 1806 was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He was married twice. His first was from the West Indies and they had three children, of whom one daughter (listed) survived to adulthood. After she died, he married the considerably younger Catherine Atkins of Newburyport (who he met at his store) and they had five (listed) further children.
Contributed by Mark Meredith on 29/03/2023 and last updated on 30/03/2023.