Lou’s View 9/23
MAYOR ELLIOT AND HIS HOUSE
By Lou Bernard
I find ideas for these columns in the most unlikely places. This one came when I was taking my son to be babysat.
On a lot of days, we walk down South Fairview Street to take him to his big sister’s place while I work. I notice a lot of the old buildings as we walk, which I tend to do. And yesterday, I noticed that there were guys working on the roof of 199 South Fairview.
“Oh, look,” I said to my son. “They’re working on the Elliot House.”
This means very little to Paul. He knows the basics, because I’ve explained this stuff to him, but I’m not sure how much he’s absorbed. The house does have a history to it, though, and a connection to a Lock Haven mayor.
That would be William Elliot, who built the house in the first place.
Elliot was born in York in 1856. William F. Elliot, the mayor of Lock Haven, is not to be confused with his father, William D. Elliot, who was mayor of York. Elliot Junior learned to be a machinist, and got a job at the Dalemeter Iron Works in New Jersey. Two years later, he came to Lock Haven and started up his own company, the Novelty Iron Works on North Fairview Street.
Novelty Iron Works made metal products that were in fairly high demand, for the time. Look at some of the drainage grates in Lock Haven—Many of them were made by the company, and still have “Novelty Iron Works” stamped on them.
Elliot and Elizabeth Brown got married on June 14, 1882, and had three children. In 1898, Elliot built the house, which has been altered very little structurally since that time. He became the mayor of Lock Haven in 1900.
His obituary stated,”Mr. Elliot’s progressive ideas established the flourishing business which crowned his efforts in that direction, and the lively interest which he manifested in municipal affairs elevated him to the offices of trust which he held. He was a jovial, companionable man, which won for him the distinction of being as well known as any gentleman in the city.” Having seen his portrait at City Hall, I can also say with accuracy that he was the Lock Haven mayor who looks the most like Nick Offerman.
Eliot served two years as mayor, and then resigned due to health reasons. Elliot had Bright’s disease—It was a kidney thing. It’s one of those things that you don’t hear about much anymore, because we figured it out and have it under control now. But back then, it could be deadly, and Elliot left city government because of it. The office was taken over by William F. Sperring, who became a groundbreaking mayor in his own right, but that’s another column.
Elliot died in the house at about 2:30 in the morning on August 4, 1901. After dealing with Bright’s disease for over two years, he’d spent three months essentially bedridden before he passed away. His obit claimed that death was due to “exhaustion.”
His wife and three children survived him. A service was held in Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church, of which he’d been a member. He was buried in Highland Cemetery, joining several other notable Lock Haven mayors such as Levi A. Mackey, Seymour Durell Ball, and James Jefferis.
His house has been standing since then, remarkably unaltered for a historic building. It still looks, today, pretty much the same as it did back when Elliot lived there. Even though they’re putting a new roof on it, it’ll still look the same. I assume William Elliot would be proud.
