San Luis Obispo County Biographies

NATHAN ELLIOTT

Submitted by Peggy Hooper

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm


NATHAN ELLIOTT, a prominent business man of El Paso de Robles, came to California 
with his family in 1864, and has been a continuous resident of the State for the last 
quarter of a century. He near Greensboro, Henry County, was born near Greensboro, 
Indiana, January 21, 1835, of. English and Scotch ancestry. His father, Obadiah Elliott, 
a native of North Carolina, removed to Indiana in 1833, a pioneer there, entering land 
and bringing up a family, and remaining there until his death. He was a Quaker and a 
zealous Abolitionist. His wife, whose maiden name was Armella Hinshaw, a very pious 
lady of the Society of Friends, was also a native of North Carolina, and daughter of Seth 
Hinshaw, a prosperous and prominent free-labor merchant of Southern slavery times. 
The subject of this sketch, the fifth in the family of eight children, was brought up on a 
farm and learned the trade of brickmaking and bricklaying, but soon embarked in 
mercantile pursuits, which he conducted with success in Indiana and Iowa until 1864 
when he sought the Pacific coast. The first seven years here he resided in Woodland, 
Yolo County, engaged in the manufacture of brick and in contracting. In 1873 he re- 
moved to San Francisco, where for fourteen years he drove a prosperous fruit and mer- 
chandise commission business; and finally, in 1886, he came to El Paso de Robles, as the 
town was just starting. He attended the first sale of town lots, and made purchases, 
subsequently of several blocks, and started the first brick-yard in the place, and has 
manufactured the brick for nearly all the brick buildings in town, including the brick 
hotel, which required 1,500,000 brick. He erected some buildings himself and has just 
broken ground for a large business block. Only three and a half years ago, when he 
first came here, it was only a cattle ranch; he has been an important factor in building 
up this pretty place. The city is now incorporated, and has one of the most palatial 
hotels, and a bath house on the coast; a large flouring-mill with roller process and a  
capacity of 150 to 200 barrels of flour per day, two school-houses and four churches, a 
good system of water works, electric lights, etc. Mr. Elliott is a Freemason, and both 
himself and wife are members of the O. E. S. 

He was married in 1855, to Miss Emily I. Haskit, a native of Indiana, and daughter of 
Thomas and Sarah Haskit. Of their four children three are living and are married: 
Charles F., is a merchant of El Paso de Robles; Mary S. is the wife of Charles H. Arnold, 
and resides in San Francisco; Laura is now Mrs. S. P. Stephens, and resides in El Paso 
de Robles; the one now deceased, Sarah Armella, was astar in the family, and much 
loved and esteemed by all. The grandchildren are five in number and are: Pearl H. and 
Meta Jane, Elliott and Susa V, and Elliott Stephens and Armella E. Arnold.

History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California  - by 
C.M. Gidney, Benjamin Brooks, Edwin M. Sheridan, Vol I, II.  -Lewis Publ. Co., 
Chicago, 1917.