Captain Ebenezer Elliott

Captain Ebenezer Elliott, of Cleveland, was a well-known lake navigator half a century ago, sailing many vessels during the time he was in service. He was born in 1813 in Toronto, Canada, from which place his parents removed to Oswego, N. Y., while he was an infant, and he attended school in that city, later becoming a ship carpenter in the yards there.

In 1843 Captain Elliott commenced sailing, removing that year with the family to Cleveland for the purpose of entering the shipyard of Stevens & Presley. Among other vessels he commanded the steamers Champlain, Vermont and Boston, of the Northern Transportation Company. In the spring of the last year that he sailed he contracted a severe cold, during exposure in bad weather, and he resigned his position on reaching port, intending to remain on shore thereafter. He soon went to work in a shipyard in Cleveland, where he was found later in the season by Captain Marshall, an old-time friend and shipmate, who desired him to sail the remainder of the year as mate of the propeller Bay State, of the Northern Transportation line, of which he (Marshall) was master, promising him the Bay State to sail the following year. Captain Elliott yielded to his friend's importunities and became mate of the vessel, which never reached the home port again, being lost with all hands about three weeks later, on November 3, 1863.

Captain Elliott was married in 1836 to Miss Mary Ann Brush, of Clayton, N. Y. Their living children are: Cornelia, now the wife of Phineas Locklin, a small boat-builder of Cleveland; Adonijah, a manufacturer of Chicago; Lottie, now the wife of E. W. Prince, of Cleveland, and Anna B., widow of W. H. Rodda, of Detroit. Another son, George, died at an early age.

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Volume I

This version of Volume II is based, with permission, on the work of the great volunteers at the Marine Captains Biographies site. To them goes the credit for reorganizing the content into some coherent order. The biographies in the original volume are in essentially random order.

Some of the transcription work was also done by Brendon Baillod, who maintains an excellent guide to Great Lakes Shipwreck Research.