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Elliot, Stephen (1771-1830). Papers of Stephen Elliot 1808-1828:A Guide

Archives, Gray Herbarium Library, Harvard University Herbaria
Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138
January 1982

© The President and Fellows of Harvard College

Descriptive Summary

Repository: Gray Herbarium Library
Title: Papers of Stephen Elliot 1808-1828

Processed by:

Lynn McWhood
January 1982

Acquisition Information:

According to the Garden and Forest article in the May 23, 1894, issue, "...the manuscript of his [Elliott's] book and of his unpublished works, including one on shells, are owned by his granddaughter, Miss S.B. Elliott, of Sewanee, Tennessee." This may be a description of the collection which is in the archives -- the botanical day-book could have been viewed as a manuscript of his book, and there are a couple lists of shells. Whatever the case, our collection of Elliott manuscripts was apparently given to C.S. Sargent by Mrs. J.A. Huger (who might be the same person as Miss S.B. Elliott) before October 18, 1894: George A. Rogers has a copy of a letter from Sargent to Mrs. Huger dated Oct. 18, 1894, in which Sargent thanked her "for Mr. Elliott's manuscripts and letters" which he had deposited in the library of the Arnold Arboretum. (See letter from Mr. Rogers, 7/10/81, in archives correspondence files.) The manuscripts were then lost from view for some years, turning up again in 1933; they were listed as accessions in the Arnold Arboretum report for the fiscal year July 1932 - June 1933 and they were recorded as accessioned Feb. 20, 1933, no. 40844.

Biography:

Stephen Elliott was born on Nov. 11, 1771, in Beaufort, S.C., the third son of William Elliott. His father died when Stephen was a boy, and his older brother is said to have taken charge of his education. He was sent to New Haven in December, 1787, to be tutored byJudge Simeon Baldwin and entered Yale in February, 1788. After receiving his B.A. from Yale in 1791, he returned to South Carolina and became a planter. He was elected to the South Carolina legislature in 1793 or 1796 (sources disagree) and served until about 1800. In 1796 he married Esther Habersham, with whom he had a large family. From 1800-1808 he seems to have devoted himself to his plantation and to tbe study of natural history. In 1808 he was re-elected to the legislature, where he was active in promoting the establishment of a state bank. When the bank was established in 1812, he was appointed President and moved to Charleston. He remained president of the bank until his death. In Charleston, Elliott was involved in a number of scientific and cultural concerns. He was active in the founding of the Literary and Philosophical Society of South Carolina and served as its president from 1814-1830; he was president of the Charleston Library Society; and he co-founded the Southern Review with Hugh Swinton Legaré in 1828. In 1820 he was elected president of the University of South Carolina; most accounts say he declined the post, but one version says he declined after serving for a while. He taught natural history and botany at the Medical School of South Carolina from 1824 until his death. Elliott carried on an active correspondence with Henry Muhlenberg and other people interested in botany and natural history. He published A Sketch of the Botany of South Carolina and Georgia from 1816 to 1824 and thereby established himself as a major figure in the history of American botany. Elliott died "of Apoplexy" in Charleston on March 28, 1830.
References: Elliott, Clark. Biographical Dictionary of American Science: The Seventeenth through the Nineteenth Centuries. Ewan, Joseph. Introduction to facsimilie of Elliott's Sketch of the Botany of South-Carolina and Georgia. New York: Hafner Pub. Co., 1971. Hooker, William Jackson."On the Botany of America." Am J. Sci 9 (1825): 275-276. Ravenel, H. W. "Some North American Botanists. VII. Stephen Elliott." Bot Gaz 8: 249-253. [unsigned, probably Sargent, C. S.] "Stephen Elliott." Garden and Forest 7 (1894): 201-202, portrait p. 204. Manuscript biography of Stephen Elliott, written by Joseph Johnson, copied and emended by William Darlington on May 24, 1851.

Scope and Content:

The Stephen Elliott papers consist of a variety of small manuscripts, some in Elliott's hand and some in other hands, not always identified; a large botanical manuscript; subscription forms for his Sketch of the Botany of South Carolina and Georgia; and a number of letters, mostly to Elliott. The small manuscripts include lists of books for the Charleston Library Society, records of slaves, plant lists and notes, and notes on other areas of natural history. The large botanical manuscript is "apparently a 'day book' in which Stephen Elliott described the plants as he actually saw them, at times in English, at others in Latin.... There are 280 species described, the dates vary from July 5, 1810 to Oct. 5, 1814." -- L. Schwarten.
The subscription forms consists of 21 "Proposals for Publication," each signed by a number of subscribers. There are almost 90 letters to Elliott from about 20 correspondents, dating from 1808 to 1828. In this group, 31 letters are from Henry Mhulenberg and about 25 are from James Macbride. The only other correspondents represented by more than one letter are Françpos André Michaux (4 letters with the lists of books), William Darlington (3 letters), and Samuel Boykin (2 letters). Eight of the correspondents are included in Joseph Ewan's list of collectors cited in the Sketch.

In addition to the manuscript materials described above, the collection includes:

Other materials pertaining to Elliott in the Gray Herbarium archives include:

Container List


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