George P. Elliott

George Perkins Elliott (born 1804) was a Lowell businessman and Billerica landowner who represented the district in the legislature in 1860 and 1861, sat on the Board of Selectmen from 1874 to 1880 and served on the School Committee in three different decades. His name was also spelled Elliot in the town records. He was born on October 28, 1804, in Chelsea, Vermont, a son of John Elliott, who had moved there from Boscawen, New Hampshire. He came to Billerica in 1833, but lived in Lowell from 1842 to 1853, where, according to Hazen, he was a member of the city government, a corporator of the Central Savings Bank and one of the founders of the Appleton Bank.

In May 1829 he married Elizabeth Tidd, daughter of John Tidd of Lexington; she died on January 9, 1834, a week after the birth of a daughter who lived only until May. On February 10, 1841, he married Mary Ann Whiting, daughter of Deacon Samuel Whiting; she died in Lowell on September 25, 1846. On January 22, 1849 (the date as corrected in Hazen's errata) he married Ann Dalton Rogers, daughter of Col. Henry Newman Rogers of Boston. His son George Henry graduated fourth in his class at West Point in 1855 and made his career in the Corps of Engineers.

Elliott owned several properties along the road from Billerica Centre to Lowell. In 1839 he bought from Henry Bowers the lot at 520 Boston Road where he probably built the house now called the George P. Elliott House #1, which still stands. On lots he acquired in 1839 and 1844 next door, at 524 Boston Road, a second house, the George P. Elliott House #2, was built about 1850; by 1853 it belonged to W. G. Alley, and it was demolished in 1999. In 1857 he bought "the homestead farm of the late John Foster," forty acres between the road and the Concord River, and in 1865 he and his wife Ann sold it to Joseph L. Getchell of Lowell for $5,000.

Hazen credits him with nearly twenty years as a trustee of the State Almshouse at Tewksbury, and notes that his term in the legislature in 1861 was the one in which "the repeal of the law requiring the removal of the dam at North Billerica was secured." At home he audited the town treasurer's accounts in 1865 and 1866 with Israel A. Colson and others, finding them "correctly cast and properly vouched," and he served on the selectmen's board with William S. Gleason and Edward Spaulding from 1874 to 1880. As a member of the School Committee in the early 1880s he looked after the schoolhouses himself: the accounts for 1884 to 1885 show him repairing the Fordway School, fixing windows and fences, and going to Lowell to buy a stove.

On March 1, 1875, he gave the town $100, "the earnings of which were to be applied for aid of needy aged and feeble women." The town accepted it as the Elliot Fund, later reported as the Elliott Fund for Aged Women, and chose women trustees to distribute the income, among them Susan A. D. Elliot in 1879. His death has not been found in the surviving town reports.

References

1. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), Genealogical Register p. 46: George Perkins Elliott, birth, marriages, career, State Almshouse trustee, legislature 1861
2. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), errata: George P. Elliott's third marriage dated Jan. 22, 1849, not 1848
3. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 305: list of representatives (George P. Elliott, 1860-61)
4. Hazen, History of Billerica (1883), p. 307: list of selectmen (George P. Elliot, 1874-80)
5. Vital Records of Billerica to 1850: marriage of George P. Elliot and Mary Ann Whiting, Feb. 10, 1841
6. Vital Records of Billerica to 1850: death of Mary Ann (Whiting) Elliot, wife of George P., Sept. 25, 1846
7. Billerica Town Report 1865, treasurer's account audited and signed by George P. Elliot
8. Billerica Town Report 1885, school expenses (G. P. Elliot paid for services as School Committee)
9. Billerica Town Report 1885, school repairs made by G. P. Elliot (Fordway School, stove, erasers)
10. Billerica Town Report 1906, town meeting report on the Elliot Fund given by Geo. P. Elliot in 1875