NEW YORK SHELL CLUB NOTES No. 231 April 1977 Page 5 
The STEPHEN ELLIOTTS - THREE GENERATIONS 
OF AMERICAN CONCHOLOGY 
Harry G. Lee 
On November 11, 1771 probably the first important conchologist of 
the American South, Stephen Elliot I, was born in Beaufort, South 
Carolina. During his lifetime he became a leading citizen of Charles- 
ton, distinguishing himself in many fields including botany, politics, 
and banking. An abiding interest in natural science impelled him to 
help create two important institutions in Charleston: The Literary 
and Philosophical Society of South Carolina (a forerunner of the _ 
Charleston Museum) and the Medical College of South Carolina (where 
he was the First Professor of Botany and Natural History). Elliott 
was a friend of Thomas Say and sent the Philadelphian many seashells 
collected in the southeast United States. At least ten valid taxa, 
most quite familiar to local collectors, were discovered by Mr. 
Elliot and described by Say. Elliot also built a collection of fos- 
sils which was important for its day. It is said that his collec- 
tions were passed on to the Charleston Museum. When Elliott died 
in 1830, his eldest son and namesake was twenty-three years of age. 
Stephen Elliott II graduated from South Carolina College in 1825 and 
was admitted to the South Carolina Bar in two years. A few years 
later he was called to the ministry and in 1841 was consecrated the 
first Bishop of Georgia in Savannah's Christ Church (designed by 
malacologist James Hamilton Couper). He spent most of the next twen- 
ty years traveling over his extensive diocese. Cast from his father's 
mold, he took ample time along his journeys to carefully collect 
snails and clams. Isaac Lea, Rt. Rev. Elliott's principal malacolo- 
gical correspondent, wrote the following of the Bishop: "“Malacologi- 
cal science is indebted to you for the development of most of the 
Unionidae which I have described from Georgia, and I have a lively 
sense of the able, prompt and efficient aid rendered by you which has 
enabled me to bring to the public view the extraordinary treasures of 
your state... It will be observed... that he (Elliott II) has brought 
not only a vast number of new species to life but that he carefully 
collected them with the soft parts, so that I am able to give the 
chief points of their anatomical structure." Lea based the descrip- 
tion of no less than seventy-three species of aquatic mollusks on Rt. 
Rev. Elliott's specimens. At present only ten of these species are 
considered valid, but they include several of the fine species of 
pearly freshwater mussels occurring in Florida. Glancing at Elliott's 
localities, one can see that he sampled from all three of Georgia's 
watersheds: The Chattahoochee-Flint and Alabama systems as well as 
the rivers of the southern Atlantic slope. He did not completely 
limit himself to freshwater collecting in Georgia - he found the holo- 
type of Ventridens elliotti (Redfield, 1856) in the "mountains of ... 
North Carolina. 
Elliott II was a member of the Royal Society of Conchologists and had 
international ties. In about 1857 he and his eldest son visited Cuba, 
where they spent time with the malacologist Felipe Poey (whom Karl 
Jacobson called the greatest of Cuban naturalists). The Elliotts and 
Poey collected together and, perhaps unexpectedly, Stephen Blliott, 
aged about twenty-four years, asserted himself by finding a previous- 
ly unknown species of land snail. Poey rewarded the lad by namin 
the new species Cylindrella elliotti in 1858 (= Callania elliotti). 
