John Eliot

Born in 1858, John Eliot was the fifth son of Lucy and Henry Bowen. He graduated from Yale College in 1881 and traveled extensively in Europe and the Middle East before earning a PhD in political science from Columbia University. He was a managing editor of The Independent and the author of short stories and poems. John joined his brothers in the Wappaquassett Polo Club, riding his pony Wilding. He died of typhoid fever in 1890, just two days before his wedding. John’s brothers and sisters created a book of memorial stories shortly after his death. Franklin described John’s room in Brooklyn as “a hundred and one things scattered about the walls and tables make a pictorial journal of his trips abroad, which John was always pleased to read to his friends …”