John Elliott, the second child and eldest son of Colonel John Elliott, of Sunbury, Liberty County, Georgia, and grandson of Captain John and Elizabeth Elliott, who removed to Sunbury from Colleton County, South Carolina, was born on October 24, 1773, and was baptized in the Midway Congregational Church on the 8th of the following December. He came to Yale through the encouragement of his pastor, the Rev. Abiel Holmes and entered in January of the Freshman year.

After graduation he returned immediately to Sunbury, and was there married to Esther, daughter of Dr. James and Esther (Dean, Splatt) Dunwody, of Liberty County, on October 1, 1795. She died in 1815, and he next married, on January 6, 1818, Martha, youngest daughter of General Daniel and Susannah (Oswald) Stewart, of Sunbury.

He had six daughters and two sons by his first wife, and by his second wife three sons and two daughters. He became prominent in public affairs, and from 1819 to 1825 was a member of the United States Senate.

He died in Sunbury on August 9, 1827, in his 54th year. His widow married in 1832 Major James S. Bulloch, and by him was the grandmother of President Roosevelt. Major Bulloch's first wife was a daughter of Senator Elliott by his first marriage. He published: An Oration, on the death of Mr. Thomas Lewis, Principal of Sunbury Academy, who died on the 3d of March; delivered (by particular request) in Sunbury Meeting-House, on the 3d of April 1804. Savannah. [1804] 8, pp.16. [Y.C.] The same. Reprinted at New Haven, Ct., 1855, 8, pp.16 [Y.C.]

Mr. Lewis was a graduate of Yale in 1798, and Mr. Elliott was one of the Commissioners (or Trustees) of the Academy. An engraving from Senator Elliott's portrait is given in Stacy's History of Midway Church.

Source:
Dexter, Franklin Bowditch, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College: With Annals of the College History, New York: H. Holt and Co., 1885-1912, Volume 5, pp. 107-108

Submitted by Bob Franks