Elliott, James Calvin

Posted By: Wally Garchow
Date: 13 October 2004

transcribed from Frazer Wilson's History of Darke County, 1914, v. 2, pp 24-28.

JAMES CALVIN ELLIOTT.

For a third of a century James Calvin Elliott has been a practitioner of law, and for the major portion of this time he has honored the legal fraternity of Darke county, Ohio. An enumeration of those men of the present generation who have won honor and public recognition for themselves, and at the same time have honored the locality where they belong, would be incomplete were there failure to make specific reference to the one whose name appears at the head of this paragraph. He holds distinctive precedence as a lawyer, as a man of high intellectual attainments and as one who stood loyally by the government during one of the most trying epochs in our national history. He has been and is distinctively a man of affairs and one who has wielded a wide influence. A strong mentality, an invincible courage, a most determined individuality, have so entered into his make-up as to render him a natural leader of men and a moulder of opinion. Although he has passed the sixty-sixth milestone on life's journey, he is still an active factor in the professional and business life of Greenville, and is counted among the representative citizens
of the community.

James C. Elliott is the scion of a long and sterling line of forebears, the founders of the branch of the Elliott family to which the subject belongs in this country having been Daniel Elliott, and Elizabeth (Ferguson) Elliott, who first came to Pennsylvania, Lancaster or Chester county, about 1756, and afterwards settled in Chester county, South Carolina, in 1767. They had children, William, Margaret (E. Orr), Benjamin, John, Daniel, Jane E. (Douglas), Ebenezer and James, Daniel Elliott, Sr., having been killed in 1780 by Tory Guerillas, when resisting the stealing of his horses. His sons, William and Benjamin, though young, thereafter took an active part with the Revolutionists in South Carolina under Captain McClure. The subject's paternal grandparents were Ebenezer and Esther (Gaston) Elliott, whose deaths occurred in Preble county, Ohio. They were the parents of eight children, seven sons and a daughter, namely : Joseph G., James, Jeanette (E. Douglas), William, John, Ebenezer, Hugh and Isaiah. The subject's father, John Elliott, who was born in South Carolina in 1803, was, in 1806, at the age of three years, brought to Preble county, Ohio, the family locating near Morning Sun, where John was reared to man-hood and spent his active life. He was reared to the life of a farmer, and never forsook that vocation. He died there in 1875, at the age of about seventy-two years, his wife having passed away in 1858, aged forty-five years. They were earnest and active members of the United Presbyterian Church and were highly esteemed in the community where they had spent practically their entire lives. John Elliott had been married twice, his first wife having been in her maidenhood Mary Latta. She died and left three children, all of whom also are dead, namely: Joseph; Esther, who married a Mr. Stephen Pearson, and Ebenezer Newton, who died some time prior to the Civil war. For his second wife John Elliott married Margaret McMillan, a native of county Antrim, north of Ireland. To that union were born seven children, namely: Sarah Diantha, of College Corner, Preble county, Ohio; John Alexander, of College Corner, Indiana; James C., the immediate subject of this sketch; Dr. Hugh Henry, a successful and well-known physician at Rushville, Indiana; Mary Agnes, who died unmarried ; William Scouller and David Cluster, both of whom live at College Corner. Mrs. Margaret Elliott's parents were Alexander and Sarah (Parkhill) McMillan, who were natives of county Antrim, Ireland, but who came to the United States just after the close of the Revolutionary war and settled in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania. About the year 1817 they removed to Ohio, locating in Preble county, where the father entered a tract of government land. Mr. McMillan died soon afterwards in Pennsylvania, and his widow and children thereafter made their home in Preble county, her death occurring there at an advanced age. There were five children in this family, Archibald, John, Nancy, Sarah and Margaret.

James C. Elliott was born in Dixon township, Preble county, Ohio, on September 17, 1847, and was reared on the paternal farmstead. After receiving his elementary education in the district schools, he attended the Morning Sun Academy, and later Miami University. After completing his general education he engaged in teaching school for three years, and then took up the study of law at Eaton, Ohio. In May, 1870, he was admitted to the bar and entered upon the active practice of his profession at Hamilton, Butler county, Ohio. In 1873 he went to Tacoma, Washington, but the following year he returned to Ohio and located at Bradford, Darke county, where he remained until 1877, when he came to Greenville, where he has since remained and where he has steadily risen in the esteem of the people until today probably no man in the community can count more warm and loyal personal friends. Throughout the years that Mr. Elliott has been identified with the local bar he has enjoyed a large and distinctively representative clientele. As a lawyer he is sound, logical, clear-minded and thoroughly trained, being familiar with all departments of the law, from the minutiae in practice to the greater topics wherein is involved the consideration of the ethics and philosophy of jurisprudence and the higher concerns of public policy. He has always prepared his cases with the greatest care and precision, has studied every pointof law bearing upon his case and has marshalled his evidence and his argument with masterly skill.

On the 5th day of June, 1877, James C. Elliott was married to Susanna B. Scott, the daughter of Abner and Esther (Hunt) Scott. She was born and reared in Preble county, Ohio, and she and Mr. Elliott were school-mates. Her parents were natives of New Jersey and belonged to the Friends' Society. They are both now deceased, the father dying in Eaton, Ohio, and her mother in Greenville. Mrs. Elliott's paternal grandparents were Thomas and Mary (Smith) Scott, while her grandparents on the maternal side were John and Ann (Brown) Hunt, all natives of New Jersey. To Mr. and Mrs. Elliott were born six children, as follows: Clarissa M. became the wife of Dr. W. C. Davis, of Lola, Kentucky, and they have three children, Mary, Chester and Calvin; Leslie A. and Annie H., twins, died at the age of six months; Esther B., who died at the age of fourteen years; Pearl L., who is a graduate of the Greenville high school and of Miami University, is now a teacher in the Greenville public schools ; James S. is a graduate of the civil engineering course of the Rose Polytechnic Institute, at Terre Haute, Indiana, and is now in the employ of the General Electric Company at Pittsfield, Mass.

Politically, Mr. Elliott has been a life-long Democrat and has taken an active interest in the success of the party. He was county prosecutor at one time for a period of six years and also served as city solicitor, while for a period of twelve years he was a trustee of the Children's Home. Mr. Elliott is a stockholder and a director of the Greenville National Bank and in other ways has shown a personal interest in the welfare of his city. Fraternally, he has for thirty-six years been a member of Champion Lodge No. 742, Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He is also a member of Jobes's Post, Grand Army of the Republic, this membership being consistent from the fact that, during the War of the Rebellion, he served for four months as a member of Company A, One Hundred and Fifty-sixth regiment, Ohio volunteer infantry. Though his period of enlistment was not a long one, it was characterized by duty faithfully performed and by intense loyalty to the cause of the Union. Mrs. Elliott is an earnest and faithful member of the Methodist Episcopal 'Church. She is a woman of rare qualities of head and heart and is a popular member of the circles in which she moves. Personally, Mr. Elliott has, because of his acknowledged ability, genuine worth and fine social qualities, won a host of friends and is eminently worthy of representation in the annals of his county. Mrs. Elliott is a member of the Emersonian Club.

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