Waldo, James Elliot

Submitted by Mike Miller

Waldo, James Elliot, lawyer, educator, and ante-bellum merchant; son of Shubael and Rebecca (Crosby) Waldo; 6th in direct descent from Cornelius Waldo, the New England pioneer; born July 11, 1805, near West Chesterfield, N. H.; died at New Orleans, La., Dec. 4, 1891. Went to New York in 1824 and admitted to New York bar after studying under William Paxton Hallet; removed to Cincinnati, where his brother, Rev. Josiah Waldo, had established the first religious journal in the West, ''The Sentinel and Star of the West,'' which is still published; studied law under Judge Thomas Corwin and admitted to Ohio bar; built the steamboat "Antelope" and navigated her in the Pittsburg-Cincinnati trade in 1828 came to New Orleans and became professor of English in the college of Prof. Francis M. Guyol; in 1831 removed to Meredosia, Ill., in which vicinity he and his brother, Daniel Waldo, had purchased vast tracts of land with the intention of settling it with New England immigrants; Pres. Tyler having named him to office in Louisiana, he returned to New Orleans to live, and in 1849 became a member of the ante-bellum firm of Miller, Harris & Waldo shortly after the reconstruction period he retired from business entirely and spent his declining years in the exercise of his scholarly attainments; his name was identified with almost every commercial and civic movement in Louisiana for over 50 years, and his sympathies were thoroughly assimilated with the South and the state of his adoption; married Eveline Almira Cobb, who died in 1835, leaving 1 child, James Curtis Waldo; married Araminta Fowle; children, John Fowle, Crosby Waldo and Caroline A. Waldo.

Source: Louisiana: Comprising Sketches of Parishes, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form (volume 3), p. 584-585. Edited by Alcee Fortier, Lit.D. Published in 1914, by Century Historical Association.