Samuel Eliot (1739-1820) was an American banker and businessman from the prominent Eliot family of Boston. He served as President of Massachusetts Bank, and was a highly successful Boston merchant, owning and operating what was then the precursor to 19th- and 20th-century style department stores. At the time of his death, he had amassed one of the largest fortunes in Boston. He was an important early benefactor of

Massachusetts General Hospital Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General or MGH) is a teaching hospital located in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the original and largest clinical education and research facility of Harvard Medical School/Harvar ...

. He was descended from the Eliot family of South England. He was born to Samuel Eliot, a Boston publisher and bookseller; and Elizabeth Marshall, from the West Indies. Eliot married Elizabeth Barrell of Boston, and married a second time in 1786 to Catherine Atkins, daughter of Dudley and Sarah (née Kent) Atkins of

Newburyport, Massachusetts Newburyport is a coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, northeast of Boston. The population was 18,289 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. A historic seaport with a vibrant tourism industry, Newburyport includes p ...

. The second marriage produced six children, one being Samuel Atkins Eliot. He was the grandfather of Samuel Eliot,

Charles Eliot Norton Charles Eliot Norton (November 16, 1827 – October 21, 1908) was an American author, social critic, and Harvard professor of art based in New England. He was a progressive social reformer and a liberal activist whom many of his contemporaries c ...

and

Charles William Eliot Charles William Eliot (March 20, 1834 – August 22, 1926) was an American academic who was president of Harvard University from 1869 to 1909, the longest term of any Harvard president. A member of the prominent Eliot family (America), Eliot fam ...

. His granddaughter, Mary Elizabeth Bray (1810–86), was married to Hamburg banker Johann Heinrich Gossler III (1805–1879), owner of

Berenberg Bank Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co. Kommanditgesellschaft, KG, commonly known as Berenberg Bank and also branded as simply Berenberg, is a Multinational corporation, multinational full-service private bank, private and merchant bank headquartered in H ...

and a member of the Berenberg-Gossler banking dynasty. Mary was the mother of Baron Johann von Berenberg-Gossler.John Albion Andrew, ''The New-England Historical & Geological Register and Antiquarian Journal'', 1869 (July):339 Eliot founded the Eliot Chair of Greek Literature at Harvard and was a corresponding member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

(1768).Whitfield Jenks Bell, ''Patriot-improvers: 1743-1768'', American Philosophical Society, 1997. In 1806, he was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eliot, Samuel American bankers Eliot family (United States) Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Businesspeople from Boston 1739 births 1820 deaths Members of the American Philosophical Society