Eliot (Charles W.) is born in Boston.

Born at 31 Beacon Street on March 20, 1834, Charles Eliot is the son of Mayor Samuel and Mary (Lyman) Eliot, graduates from Boston Latin School and Harvard College, teaches chemistry and mathematics at Harvard and M.I.T., and marries Ellen Peabody in 1858. He serves as president of Harvard University (1869-1909*), where he introduces an elective system for undergraduates, and other reforms. Richard Norton Smith later calls Eliot “A plain man in a plush age, who unmortgaged Harvard from her past, severed her Yankee roots, and began her transformation into an instrument of national purpose.” Eliot dies in Northeast Harbor, Maine, on August 22, 1926.