William Greenleaf Eliot (August 5, 1811 – January 23, 1887) was an American educator, Unitarian minister, and civic leader in Missouri. He is most notable for founding Washington University in St. Louis, and also contributed to the founding of numerous other civic institutions, such as the Saint Louis Art Museum, public school system, and charitable institutions. The modernist poet T. S. Eliot was his grandson. Early life and education Eliot was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, the son of Margaret Greenleaf (Dawes) and William Greenleaf Eliot. After attending the Friends Academy in New Bedford, Eliot attended Columbian College (now the George Washington University) in Washington, D.C., and graduated in 1831. Eliot did graduate work at Harvard Divinity School and graduated in 1834. He was ordained a minister of the Unitarian church on August 17, 1834. Career After his ordination, Eliot moved to St. Louis, where he lived for the rest of his life, until 1887. There he founded the Church of the Messiah, the first Unitarian church west of the Mississippi River. Today it is called the First Unitarian Church of Saint Louis. He led the congregation from 1834 to 1870, through a period of rapid expansion of the city. Eliot was active in civic life and was instrumental in founding many civic institutions, including the St. Louis Public Schools, the Saint Louis Art Museum, Mission Free School, South Side Day Nursery, and the Western Sanitary Commission to provide medical care and supplies during the Civil War. In 1861, he was part of a small group of men who helped Generals Nathaniel Lyon and Francis P. Blair to retain Missouri in the Union. He contributed to the development of the Colored Orphans' Home, Soldiers' Orphans' Home, Memorial Home, Blind Girls' Home, Women's Christian Home, and other charitable institutions. When Ralph Waldo Emerson visited St. Louis, he met Eliot and called him "the Saint of the West." Eliot publicly associated himself with the American Colonization Society and served as president of the St. Louis’s Young Men’s Colonization Society. Despite his anti-slavery beliefs and acts of emancipating slaves and assisting in emancipation, he did not agree with Northern abolitionist politics but instead supported gradual emancipation to avoid Civil War. Eliot had a strong interest in developing educational opportunities in St. Louis. He co-founded Washington University in St. Louis (initially called Eliot Seminary - much to his chagrin) in 1853. He donated funds