Page:Sketches of representative women of New England.djvu/416

Rh and over fourteen thousand members, her office is one of great responsibility.

She has participated in all the National Conventions since 1883, and in the performance of this duty has travelled in nearly all the States and Territories of the Union. In 1895 she was chairman of a committee to compile a history of the Department of Massachusetts, Woman's Relief Corps, a volume of four hundred pages.

Miss Elliot has delivered Memorial Day addresses in Massachusetts and New Hampshire by invitation of Grand Army posts, and has participated in several hundred patriotic gatherings. She is chairman of the Press Committee for the National Convention in Boston (1904), a position she held during the arrangements for the National Convention in Boston in 1890, and is also a member of the Executive Committee, Entertainment and other committees for that great gathering. She was recently presented a valuable gold watch and chain set with diamonds, a testimonial from members throughout the State, and her friends have also presented her portrait to department headquarters in the Boylston Building.

For nearly twenty years she has been a regular contributor to the military department of the Boston Globe, and has written extensively upon woman's patriotic efforts. She has in preparation a book giving historical and biographical data concerning the men in whose honor the posts of the Grand Army of the Republic are named. When published, it will be unique in character, as no such work has ever been issued in any State.

Miss Elliot is an officer of the Ladies' Aid Association of the Soldiers' Home in Massachusetts, and her name is on its first roll of membership. She is also a charter member of Bunker Hill Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, a member of the Somerville Historical Society, of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and of other organizations. She takes a special interest in historical matters. She is liberal in her religious belief, being a Universalist. Her brother, Charles Darwin Elliot, served in the Civil War on the staff of engineers in the Nineteenth Army Corps, under General Banks, and was in the Port Hudson campaigns, the Red River expedition, serving also in Texas and in other campaigns. He was the first city engineer of Somerville, and for three years was president of the Historical Society of that city.

Miss Elliot is one of the compilers of "Representative Women oi New England."

MILY JANE ELLIOT, teacher in the public schools of New Orleans, and secretary of the "Union Ladies' Soldiers' Aid Society" of that city in the Civil War, was born November 23, 1843, in Union, Rock County, Wis. Her parents, David, Jr., and Mary (Spencer) Ring, removed from Maxfield, Me., to Perkins Grove, 111., and thence to Wisconsin about 1839 or 1840. David Ring, Jr., Mrs. Elliot's father, was a son of David Ring (born March 3, 1769) and his wife, Mehitable Crockett (born August 26, 1769), and grandson of John Crockett (born August 14, 1738) and his wife, Mary Starbird, who was born January 19, 1745. David Ring, Jr., was born in Sumner, Me., April 7, 1801, died in Wisconsin in June, 1874. He married June 24, 1824, Mary, daughter of John and Mary (Urann) Spencer. She was born in Bangor, Me., in 1806, and died in Wisconsin, October 13, 1846. They had nine children, six of whom were born in Maine, one in Illinois, and two in Wisconsin. Their eighth child was Emily J., the subject of this sketch.

Through her maternal grandmother Mrs. Elliot is a descendant of Captain Thomas Urann, one of the Boston Tea Party and an officer of the American Revolution. He served at the battle of Bunker Hill in the regiment of Colonel Richard Gridley and later under General William Heath, 1777 to 1779. Captain Urann was one of the "Sons of Liberty" and a member of the "North End Caucus," a patriotic association whose membership included Paul Revere, John and Samuel Adams, and General Joseph Warren. He was also a member and for some time Master of St. Andrews Lodge of Free Masons, and one of the organizers and first