Charles Eliot (November 1, 1859 – March 25, 1897) was an American landscape architect. Known for pioneering principles of regional planning, naturalistic systems approach to landscape architecture, and laying the groundwork for conservancies across the world. Instrumental in the formation of The Trustees of Reservations, the world's first land trust, playing a central role in shaping the Boston Metropolitan Park System, designing a number of public and private landscapes, and wrote prolifically on a variety of topics.
History
Eliot was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1859 to Charles W. Eliot and Ellen Derby Peabody. Charles had one brother, Samuel A. Eliot, who was a minister. His father became President of Harvard University in 1869, the same year his mother died. He was part of the prominent Eliot family originating from Boston.
In 1878 he was admitted to Harvard College.
In 1880 Charles organized a group of college classmates who would sail to Mount Desert Island, Maine, to spend the summer. The group was named the Champlain Society, Charles Eliot being the Director. While there, studying botany, geology, meteorology, marine life, ornithology, and entomology. Charles would write his parents later that fall recommending to look between Somes's Sound and Seal Harbor if they wanted to build a house on Mount Desert Island: "Somewhere along that coast you will find a suitable spot, with beautiful views of the ocean, and hills, deep water anchorage, fine rocks and beach, and no flats." A year later his father would purchase 120 acres and build what is considered to be the first summer cottage in Northeast Harbor.
On graduation from Harvard in 1882, Eliot pursued horticultural courses at the Bussey Institute at Harvard to prepare himself for the profession of landscape architecture.
In 1883 Eliot became an apprentice for Frederick Law Olmsted and Company, the architect of Central Park. He worked on designs for Cushing Island, Maine (1883), Franklin Park (1884), the Arnold Arboretum (1885), and the Fens (1883) in Boston, and Belle Isle Park (1884) in Detroit. In 1885, on Olmsted's advice, Eliot traveled to Europe to observe natural scenery as well as the landscape designs of Capability Brown, Humphry Repton, Joseph Paxton, and Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau. Eliot's travel diaries provide one of the best visual assessments of European landscapes in the late 19th century.
Returning to Boston in 1886, Eliot opened his own office. His commissions included White Park (1888) in Concord, New Hampshire, Youngstown Gorge (1891), now called Mill Creek Park, in Youngstown, Ohio, and Salt Lake City's plan for a new town (1890).
In 1888 Charles married Mary Yale Pitkin from Philadelphia; this marriage produced four daughters: Ruth, Grace, Ellen, and Carola. She was a member of the Yale family of Yale University. Mary's father was Horace Wells Pitkin, a successful businessman in Tennessee, Louisville and Philadelphia; his sister Emily would marry the artist Seth Cheney; and her mother was Lucy Tracy Yale, Lucy's sister would marry a Mr. Beadle. Mary Yale Pitkins' brother was Yale missionary Horace Tracy Pitkin; her grandnephew was NY Senator Mortimer Yale Ferris. Her grandfather was Reverend Cyrus Yale who graduated from Williams College in 1811 and was a minister for 40 years at the Town Hill Church in New Hartford Connecticut. The Yale, Pitkin, and Beadle Families would spend their summers at their farm called "Eaglesnest" on Town Hill Road in New Hartford Connecticut.
On March 5, 1890, Eliot published an article entitled "Waverly Oaks" to defend a stand of virgin trees in Belmont, Massachusetts, in the process making a plea for preservation of the oaks and outlining a strategy for conserving other areas of scenic beauty in the same way that the Boston Public Library held books and the Museum of Fine Arts pictures. This article resulted in a conference held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1890 on preservation of scenic beauty, and led to the enactment of Massachusetts legislation creating The Trustees of Reservations in 1891 — the world's first organization created to "acquire, hold, protect and administer, for the benefit of the public, beautiful and historical places." Within four years, Britain's National Trust was created along these lines.