Matthew Elliott

Who was Matthew Elliott?

Matthew Elliott was born in County Donegal, Ireland in 1739 and died on May 7, 1814 in Burlington, Ontario. He was a trader, farmer, Indian Department official, political, fur trader, and militia officer during and after the era of the American Revolution. He held a key position in Anglo-Indian affairs during the time period.

Elliott came to America in 1761 and settled in Pennsylvania during the French and Indian War. As a trader in western Pennsylvania and Ohio in the 1760s and 1770s, and as a captain in the British Indian Department during the Revolution, he had lived and fought among the tribes of the Northwest, particularly the Shawnee. He was married to a Shawnee woman and spoke the language fluently, his sympathies with the Indians. With the Shawnee woman, Elliott had two sons named Alexander and Matthew. He later married Sarah Donovan and they had another two sons, Francis Gore and Robert Herriot Barclay.

In 1778 Elliott, along with Alexander McKee and Simon Girty fled to Detroit. He served as a scout on Henry Hamilton’s expedition to Vincennes in the autumn of 1778 but left before Hamilton was captured by the Americans in February 1779.