ELLIOTT, CHARLES: Methodist Episcopal clergyman; b. at Killybegs (14 m. w. of Donegal), County Donegal, Ireland, May 15, 1792; d. at Mount Pleasant, Iowa, Jan. 6, 1869. After having been denied admission to the University of Dublin for refusal to take the prescribed test oath, he pursued advanced studies privately and emigrated to America in 1815. He joined the Ohio Conference in 1818, and during the next twelve years served successively as traveling preacher, superintendent of the mission among the Wyandotte Indians, presiding elder of the Ohio district, and professor of modern languages in Madison College, at Uniontown, Penn. Later he was presiding elder of the Pittsburg district and editor of the Pittsburg Conference Journal (1833-36). He also edited the Western Christian Advocate (1836-48, and 1852-1856). As editor of the Central Christian Advocate of St. Louis, Mo. (1860-64), he strongly supported the cause of the Union. From 1857 to 1860 he was professor of Biblical literature and president of the Iowa Wesleyan University at Mount Pleasant, and again from 1864 to 1867. His principal works were Delineation of Romanism (2 vols., New York, 1841; London, 1851); The Great Secession from the Methodist Episcopal Church (Cincinnati, 1855); and South-western Methodism, a History of the M. E. Church in Missouri (New York, 1868).

 

Bibliography: J. M. Buckley, History of Methodism in the United States, passim, New York, 1897.