My Genealogy Hound

JAMES ELLIOTT. On April 3, 1801, James and Nancy (Kelly) Elliott and their only child, a son, intending to leave for America, were dismissed as members in good standing from the associate congregation of Scorvah, North Ireland. They landed at Wilmington, Del., where their son, who had died on the voyage, was buried.

Journeying from there to Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, they settled in the locality now known as “The Pines,” in Dickinson township, where they purchased a farm. On Jan. 26, 1822, James Elliott leased from the estate of the Hon. Thomas Duncan, deceased, the place known as the “Smokeytown Farm,” and moved to it in the following April. In March, 1833, he purchased this farm and lived upon it until his death, which occurred Aug. 24, 1849, at the age of seventy years. In 1837 the present mansion house was erected, and the same year the Cumberland Valley railroad was built through the farm.

James Elliott was survived by five daughters, Margaret Stephens, Nancy Kirkpatrick, Sarah Kirkpatrick, Eliza McCleary and Mary Ann White; and one son, John Elliott, who was born Sept. 8, 1804, and named after the boy who died on the ocean.

Upon the death of the father, the farm, through inheritance and purchase, descended to the only son, John Elliott, the father of the subject of this sketch. On Jan 10, 1854, John Elliott was married to Mrs. Maria Kirkpatrick, the widow of Isaac Kirkpatrick, who was drowned in the Juniata river at Millerstown in January, 1848. Mrs. Elliott’s maiden name was Stroop, and she was a granddaughter of George Stroop, a former sheriff of Cumberland county. George Stroop and his sons assisted in the erection of Perry county, and, it is supposed, were largely instrumental in giving it its name. His dwelling house standing at Alinda, is one of the most commodious country residences in Perry county, and still belongs to relatives of the family. The Stroops are intermarried with the Holmans and Sheibleys, and their family history is a part of the history of Perry county. To John and Maria Elliott were born two children, Clara, now the wife of A. S. Montgomery, of Big Spring, Cumberland county; and James Elliott. John Elliott died at the old home Aug. 20, 1864, aged sixty years; and Maria Elliott died at the same place April 25, 1893, aged seventy-two years.

James Elliott was born in the old homestead July 7, 1857, and remained there attending the public schools of Plainfield until his fifteenth year. After two years of preliminary study he entered Dickinson College, at Carlisle, from which institution, in 1878, he graduated in the classical course with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He then entered the civil engineering department of Lafayette College, and graduated from it in 1879 as civil engineer. His two classmates at Lafayette were G. W. Snow, since United States Surveyor General of Utah; and Hidatake Taro Yegawa, a Japanese, who was one of his country’s plenipotentiaries at the conclusion of peace between Japan and China in 1895. After teaching a term in the classical academy at Stewartstown, Pa., he turned his course westward, and after a long journey which included a trip of 225 miles by wagon, he reached Buffalo in northern Wyoming. After clerking in Yrabing Brothers’ general store for six months, he here opened the first school of that section. He was induced to do so under the promise of aid from the school authorities of Carbon county, which county then embraced that part of the territory. The promised aid failed to materialize, and the school was closed, but soon thereafter every store, hotel, road ranch and stopping place was supplied with petitions, prepared by Elliott, for signatures praying the governor of Wyoming for the erection of a new county separate and apart from Carbon. Two previous efforts for a new county had failed, but this one carried with a rush and the new county of Johnson, with Buffalo as the county seat, was established. Upon the organization of the new county, he was nominated for superintendent of county schools, but his youthful appearance was against him, and he failed to be elected by the narrow majority of forty-four votes. Going to Utah in 1881 he became assistant engineer on construction on the SanPete Valley railroad. Upon the completion of that road he was employed on the Oregon Short Line, then being built across the sands and lava rock of southern Idaho. Next he was employed as an assistant engineer on the Walla Walla & Pendleton Branch of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company’s lines; also on the Colfax & Moscow branch and the Grand Ronde Valley and North Powder extensions, both on location and construction; and later in the Portland offices of the O. R. & N. and N. P. R. R. Companies. In 1885, owing to the impending failure of Henry Villard, and the curtailment of work on the Northern Pacific and Allied railroad enterprises, he returned to Pennsylvania, where he for some time assisted in surveying and mapping a line of railroad between Newville and Landisburg, which, however, was never completed. Having come in possession of the old homestead, and desiring to give up the roving life of a civil engineer, he entered the grain business in a warehouse which had been built by his father on the east end of the farm about the year 1851, at a station on the Cumberland Valley railroad then known as Good Hope. Here he opened a grain, coal and forwarding business, and in 1886 was appointed freight agent for the Cumberland Valley Railroad Company. On Dec. 26, 1888, the name of the station was changed to Elliott. In the year 1889 he rented the warehouse to Thomas R. Burgner, and accepted the chief engineership of the Perry county railroad, and his energy played an important part in pushing that enterprise to its completion. After its completion he acted for one year as its superintendent and chief engineer.

On March 12, 1891, James Elliott was married to Miss Bertie F. Fredericks, a daughter of Joel F. and Eleanor (Eagle) Fredericks, of New Bloomfield. Joel F. Fredericks was captain of Company F, 133d P. V. I., in the War of the Rebellion. His wife, Eleanor (Eagle) McFredericks, was a granddaughter of Francis McCown, one of the first settlers in Perry county, whose home, one mile east of New Bloomfield, is now owned by Oliver Rice. Mrs. Elliott is a lady who is much interested in music and art, and previous to her marriage took a prominent part in all musical entertainments in New Bloomfield.

In February, 1889, Mr. Elliott purchased from the estate of John F. Lindsey, deceased, the large stone mill situated on the Conedoguinet creek a mile due north of Elliottson. This he, in 1891, changed into a rollermill, and associating with him Thomas R. Burgner has since been operating it under the firm name of Burgner & Elliott. He also the same year resumed the grain and forwarding business at Elliott Station, and has continued in it ever since. Passenger train service, which had been discontinued at that point about ten years before, was re-opened, and in March, 1895, the Adams Express Company also opened an office. In 1896 the name of Elliott Station was changed to Elliottson to conform with the name of the post office, which was established there Jan. 15, 1896. Elliottson has grown into quite a town, and has a population of about one hundred and twenty-five. It was largely built by James Elliott, lies in the most beautiful part of the Cumberland Valley, four miles west from Carlisle, and numbers among its industries the Elliott flouring mills, the Bricker lime kilns, the Brehm carriage shops, and extensive green houses of George W. Bear. The Burns Academy, a classical school famous in the ante-bellum days, which flourished here while the place was known as Good Hope, passed out of the Burns name in 1864, part of the buildings burned down in 1890, and nearly all that the fire spared have since been removed. The property is now owned by Mrs. Rheta Carl. Among the older generation in Cumberland county are yet persons who treasure with the hallowed recollections of their youth the name and associations of the Burns Academy. Mr. Elliott still resides in the old home in which he was born. The only junior member of his family is Frederick Snow Elliott, named after his father’s classmate in LaFayette College.

Very meager data exist relative to the Elliott family previous to their emigration to America, but from what is at hand we gather that James Elliott had two brothers, Thomas and Moses. Thomas retained the old homestead in Ireland, and his granddaughter, Elizabeth A. Elliott, is living upon it at the present day. Moses left two sons, Alexander, who moved to Campville, Conn.; and James, who settled at Osgood, Ontario, at which places their descendants continue to live.